Murkowski won’t vote for Trump’s nominee Blanche as attorney general

Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's moderate Republican senator, announced early on Friday that she will not vote for Todd Blanche as US attorney general, leaving his confirmation in the post down to a single remaining vote.

Murkowski issued a statement expressing her concerns that the Trump administration could proceed with its proposed fund to compensate rioters who invaded the US Capitol on January 6 in a failed attempt to overturn Joe Biden's defeat of Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Blanche, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, is already serving as acting attorney general.

Murkowski's announcement came a day after Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, was asked about his fraying relationships with Republican critics including Murkowski and the Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy – whose vote could now single-handedly decide Blanche's fate – and whether the president would reach out to either Republican senator to save the vote.

"I'll reach out to whoever I have to, but anybody voting against [Blanche] would be doing a great disservice to the country," Trump told reporters.

"People have such unbelievable respect" for Blanche, he claimed, expressing hope that reaching out to those lawmakers "won't be necessary".

Maine's Susan Collins had already said she will oppose Blanche's confirmation over concerns about the independence of the US Department of Justice, and with Murkowski's opposition now confirmed, Cassidy is the last undecided Republican vote standing between Blanche and confirmation, an issue the Senate is racing to resolve before the chamber leaves for its five-week August recess that begins this weekend.

Murkowski and Cassidy were among the handful of Republicans who voted to convict Trump after his 2021 impeachment over the January 6 Capitol riot. After the Oval Office meeting, Trump acknowledged the political toll his feuds with GOP holdouts have taken.

"Look, I don't regret it. You do what you have to do," Trump told Punchbowl News. "And just so you understand, they voted to impeach me … In all fairness, you think that I'm going to support somebody that voted to impeach me?"

She took her stance even though Blanche confirmed in writing the controversial fund was dead. Experts say Trump could easily reverse it. Murkowski said the Senate only currently has leverage over the fund because Blanche's nomination to head the Department of Justice is pending necessary confirmation by the upper congressional chamber.

Blanche had persuaded the Senate judiciary committee in a 12-10 vote in his favor earlier this week only because he promised Republican holdouts that he would not pursue the payout fund.

Blanche issued a formal order late on Sunday terminating Trump's $1.8bn "anti-weaponization" slush fund designed to compensate political allies who had been "targeted" by the justice department, including prosecutions of January 6 insurrectionists. That move followed weeks of negotiations with two Republican senators who were blocking his nomination to become attorney general – Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, who were eventually swayed by Blanche.

Murkowski posted on X on Friday, praising Blanche but then saying "ultimately" she would oppose his nomination, a position she took on Tuesday and is now sticking with.

"The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration. I hope Mr Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case," she wrote, as part of a much longer post on the topic.

Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority, but Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was just released from the hospital, is not attending sessions because of his health.