By SUZANNE DOWNING
Aug. 7, 2026 – Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she will vote against President Donald Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche to lead the Justice Department, a sharp contrast with the Alaska Republican’s willingness to help install the officials who ran the department during the Biden administration.
Murkowski announced Friday that she does not have confidence Blanche would “check the worst impulses of this administration.” She cited the department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, immunity provisions involving Trump and his family, and what she described as the targeting of former administration officials and sitting senators.
Update: Blanche’s nomination has passed the Senate without Murkowski’s vote of support.
Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, is currently serving as acting attorney general. Murkowski joins Sen. Susan Collins of Maine as the two Republicans publicly opposing his confirmation. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana announced Friday that he would support Blanche, likely giving the nominee enough votes to be confirmed with Vice President JD Vance available to break a tie.
Murkowski’s objections center on her concern that the Justice Department could become politicized under Trump. But she showed considerably less skepticism when President Joe Biden assembled the leadership team that weaponized federal law enforcement against Biden’s political opponents.
In March 2021, Murkowski voted to confirm Merrick Garland as attorney general. Garland was confirmed 70-30, with Murkowski among 20 Republicans joining Democrats in support, according to the official Senate roll call.
Murkowski also supplied the decisive Republican vote to confirm radical Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general, the No. 3 position at the Justice Department.
Republicans had spent weeks opposing Gupta, pointing to her advocacy record, statements about policing and support for decriminalizing drugs. The Republican conference was expected to remain united, and Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the Capitol prepared to cast the Biden administration’s first tie-breaking confirmation vote.
Murkowski made that unnecessary.
She broke ranks and joined all 50 Democrats to confirm Gupta 51-49, the only Republican to vote yes, allowing Democrats to portray the nomination as bipartisan. The Senate’s official record confirms both the final tally and Murkowski’s floor speech supporting Gupta.
The Garland Justice Department later became the center of allegations that federal law enforcement had been turned into a political instrument.
Garland personally approved the August 2022 FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. His department appointed special counsel Jack Smith, whose office brought two federal indictments against Trump in 2023: the classified-documents case in Florida in June and the election-related case in Washington in August.
The department also faced years of criticism over its handling of the Hunter Biden investigation and prosecution. Garland’s October 2021 memorandum directing federal law enforcement to address supposed threats against school officials became another flashpoint, with parents’ groups and Republican lawmakers arguing that the federal government was intimidating citizens who objected to school policies. The memo referred specifically to threats and violence, its timing and context cast ordinary parents as potential domestic threats.
Murkowski’s support extended well beyond Garland and Gupta. She voted to confirm 19 of Biden’s first 21 Cabinet and Cabinet-level nominees, opposing only Xavier Becerra for Health and Human Services and one other nominee. She also became one of the Senate Republicans most willing to support Biden’s judicial selections.
In 2022, Murkowski joined Collins and Sen. Mitt Romney as the only Republicans voting to place Ketanji Brown Jackson on the US Supreme Court. Murkowski had already supported Jackson’s 2021 confirmation to the influential US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Murkowski’s overall record made her one of the Democratic president’s most dependable Republican votes on nominations.
That record now provides the backdrop for her decision to oppose Blanche.
Murkowski was willing to help Biden install Garland, Gupta, Jackson and nearly his entire opening Cabinet. Four years of Justice Department controversies followed, including unprecedented federal prosecutions of Trump, who was the leading opposition candidate and former president.
Now, with a Republican president trying to put his own choice in charge of the same department, Alaska’s senior senator has decided that concerns about politicization are grounds for a no vote.
16 thoughts on “Murkowski backed Biden’s DOJ architects, but now opposes Trump’s attorney general nominee”
Get take down is going to be enjoyable to watch. Can’t wait. Evil traitor
HER take down. (Don’t know how to make corrections)
Confirming Garland and Gupta isn’t the same as confirming Blanche, and pretending otherwise is just willful blindness. Garland got 70 votes and ran DOJ through grand juries, career prosecutors, and an independent special counsel. The process worked exactly as designed, whether or not you like the results. Blanche is the guy sitting on the Epstein files. AS AG, all Blanche will do is attack whoever Trump says to attack, irrespective of the facts, and continue to cover up and protect Trump Inc.’s manifold corruption. He will destroy what little credibility the DOJ has left. Murkowski is right to stand against this confirmation.
Might be time to examine your own TDS, Suzanne, before defending blind allegiance like this.
Garland is acompletely corrupt political hack. Confirming him was a huge mistake
Garland sent the FBI to investigate innocent parents for opposing school boards. Held innocent J6 protesters in jail for years for literally standing on the White House lawn with signs. Used their cellphone tracking data to determine they were there. He signed off on the totally illegal, evidence- free Mar-A-Lago raid, a crude, blatant attempt to take out the opposition frontrunner shortly before an election. Garland was the most utterly corrupt AG in recent history, he completely defined the term ” weaponization of the DOJ” . What IDIOT believes that the DOJ had any credibility at all under Garland?????
” dont like my standards??, here, I have another set! “
Meaningless position to take as Blanche will get through. Now if she ever is the deciding vote on anything of consequence we can then give her the appropriate credit. Collins is known for the same type of performative behavior.
OTOH, Collins supported Kavanaugh and is supporting Blanche. She is an honest Senator, unlike Lisa. Cheers –
Collins voted no on Blanche. Collins supported Kavanaugh, explicitly representing that he would not overturn Roe. She now has to defend this erroneous representation. Collins opposed Barrett. Lisa championed Gorsuch and supported Barrett. She also supported Sessions and Barr.
Ah Suzanne, I was eagerly awaiting your response to Senator Murkowski’s decision. And here it is. So let’s set the record straight. I admire Todd Blanche’s rise from night student at Brooklyn Law School to the US Attorneys Office to what we in the business call a “white shoe” aka “Wall Street” law firm. He would arguably be a solid Attorney General in another Republican administration. But not this one. Insider tip: Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr both earned Lisa’s support. In Sessions case, the chemistry with Lisa was not that good, Sessions promised that he would not betray’s Lisa’s confidence. Our conversations with Bill Barr were encouraging from the start. Both demonstrated incredible intestinal fortitude in it. The question is whether Todd Blanche has the gravitas to stand-up to the President as is expected of the Attorney General by law and tradition. The AG is not the President’s lawyer, he is the nation’s lawyer. Just as a corporate General Counsel is not the CEO’s lawyer, but the institution’s lawyer. NB: the White House Counsel’s office is the President’s lawyer. And I personally know two from the first administration who found this President a most challenging client. To Vanita Gupta two observations. She was confirmed to the #3 position in DOJ. The position that controls all of the law enforcement grants, particularly those to prop up public safety in rural Alaska. Vanita Gupta was far from radical. At least by the standards of every reputable law enforcement organization. From the chiefs all the way down the ranks to the Fraternal Order of Police. I had already retired when the nomination came in but as Lisa’s longtime COP staffer weighed in on the nom. Finally, Lisa’s statement that she would vote no was a class act. She seems to have developed a decent personal relationship with the man and that will not change. When he needs congressional support to buttress the President’s “worst instincts” I expect that her door will be open. Far more critical of Blanche’s probability of success in the job was the conservative Society for the Rule of Law, of which I am a member. If any of your readers are interested in their assessment I will be glad to link it.
Just a reminder that Todd Blanche knows the names of everyone who raped children on Epstein’s island and refuses to prosecute any of them.
Good on ya senator. If Blanche is confirmed he will be Trumps puppet.
Hmmm(?) … I’m guessing that Daddy’s Little Princess is being an obstructionist so as to keep Blanche from discovering // disclosing some serious dirt on Daddy and Jim Clark (Chief of Staff)? Or, potential improper // inappropriate drug and trafficking that potentially occurred at the Spaghetti Shop (ie: AK Pazta Co)?
It seems to me that we always see a picture of Miss Princess with a scowl on her face. Doesn’t Lisa ever smile?
Not only is this Hag a 💩Stain on Alaska but all of the Country!
Simply put, Lisa presents the clearest case of TDS ever. Always an embarrassment to Alaskans, she’s blinded by her condition. Yet, half of Alaska is duped by her each election cycle. Alaskans consider embarrassment acceptable.