Senate Majority Leader John Thune anticipates that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Director of National Intelligence nominee Jay Clayton are in strong positions for confirmation, barring unforeseen issues during their upcoming hearings.
"I think you know, barring something unforeseen at the confirmation hearings coming up this week, they should both be in pretty good shape, and my expectation is to try to move them before August break," Thune told The Post. He noted that Blanche's meetings have yielded "real strong" readouts, and that Clayton has been confirmed by the Senate previously for his role at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Blanche, who has served as the acting head of the Justice Department since April 2, faced scrutiny last month regarding a now-scrapped Department of Justice $1.776 billion weaponization fund. Thune acknowledged past reservations from some Republican senators, such as Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, over the fund but stated they have been having productive conversations with Blanche.
Support for Blanche's nomination has come from a broad coalition, including police unions representing over 670,000 officers, "angel families," and bipartisan Department of Justice officials from multiple administrations. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans have invited former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association President John Adler, and Jennifer Bos, whose family was affected by a crime involving an undocumented immigrant, to testify in support of Blanche.
Conversely, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee plan to present testimony from Dani Bensky, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, and Liz Oyer, a former DOJ official. According to Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin, Oyer was dismissed by Blanche for not approving gun ownership rights for Mel Gibson, and Bensky's name was inadvertently included in released Epstein files due to a redaction failure.
Thune suggested that both nominations are likely to face party-line votes, noting that Clayton's 2017 SEC nomination had bipartisan support. He criticized Democrats for slowing down the confirmation process for executive branch nominees and federal judges, stating that "everything takes longer than it should" because they are not allowing confirmations by unanimous consent.
"They're obstructing even qualified nominees, and it's really a sad commentary on kind of where the Democrat Party is," Thune said. "These people really have, in a lot of ways, lost their minds in the way that they’re playing with, not just nominees, but other things."