Senate to vote to confirm Blanche, other key nominations next week

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(The Center Square) – Both chambers of Congress will return to Capitol Hill this week after more than a week away for the July 4 recess, and the Senate will hold multiple confirmation hearings for several key administration posts. 

The hearings follow a series of personnel changes across the Trump administration, including the firing of former Attorney General Pam Bondi, the resignation of former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, leadership changes at the Department of Health and Human Services and the resignation of former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer after allegations of misconduct. There will also be hearings for a new Transportation Security Administration administrator and some positions in the Treasury Department.

The highest-profile position to be filled is attorney general. President Donald Trump's nominee is Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, formerly deputy attorney general under Bondi. The hearing is likely to draw particular attention not only because of the prominence of the position, but also because more than 1,200 former Justice Department employees last week signed a letter urging the Senate to reject his nomination.

Before working for the administration, Blanche was a criminal defense attorney for over a decade who defended the president in three of the criminal cases brought against him. Prior to that, he spent 15 years working for the department, eventually becoming an Assistant United States attorney and later, a supervisor.

The letter opposing his nomination says that various “corruption and abuses… have defined the Justice Department under Todd Blanche’s leadership.”

Among the reasons the former employees gave for opposing Blanche were what they described as “vindictive prosecutions and investigations of the president's foes,” the handling of the Epstein files, repeated violations of court orders and a Justice Department workforce they said is falling apart.

“Of the more than 100,000 employees at the Justice Department, 99 percent are career civil servants” who have worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations, according to the letter’s authors.

Yet despite a large portion of his career being spent at the DOJ before now, the former employees wrote that Blanche is “demonizing career employees” and demoralizing the department. Approximately 16,000 employees have left – either as a result of firings or of their own volition – due to restructuring, the elimination of various offices, clashing visions for the department or their roles and what the employees say is a “culture of fear” Blanche has created.

Though Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, Blanche has not enjoyed entirely universal conservative support. Some lawmakers, like North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell have publicly criticized him. Conservative organization Society for the Rule of Law also wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing his nomination.

Other confirmation hearings for prominent positions include those for Jay Clayton, nominated for director of national intelligence; Erica Schwartz, nominated for CDC director; and Keith Sonderling, nominated for labor secretary.

Clayton, Schwartz and Sonderling are seen as less controversial picks than some of Trump's other nominees.

Republicans have favored Clayton over Bill Pulte, whom Trump appointed as the acting director. Some prominent Democrats have also spoken highly of the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman.

Schwartz is a more traditional choice for CDC director than some of his other picks for the department. She’s a physician and was the deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first term after serving as the chief medical officer for the U.S. Coast Guard. She has “no public ties to the anti-vaccine movement,” according to Stat.

Sonderling was deputy secretary of labor under DeRemer, led the Wage and Hour Division during Trump’s first term, and has served as a former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission vice-chair.