President Donald Trump will have wide latitude to keep his preferred pick leading the Justice Department after his firing of ally Pamela Bondi, including scenarios that could entirely avoid a Senate confirmation process well into the future.
Any permanent attorney general nominee could face a tough path to confirmation in the Senate, where controversies and attacks against the department’s independence have outraged Democrats and at times spurred concern from some Republicans.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, already indicated in a CNN interview that he would not back an attorney general nominee who has excused the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He previously has criticized a Justice Department probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as a threat to the independence of the central bank.
Several names have been floated in news reports as potential replacements for Bondi, but the president has not announced a nominee. Meanwhile, the president’s former personal attorney, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, is leading the department as acting attorney general.
Blanche, experts say, could remain as acting attorney general for many months, if not longer, depending on the consent of Senate Republican leadership and the interpretation of federal statute.
Under one scenario, Blanche could have been appointed under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. The statute allows an individual to serve in an acting capacity for 210 days, during which time the president could announce a nominee for Senate confirmation.
Once a nomination has been made, the person serving in the acting capacity can stay in the role while the nomination is pending in the Senate, according to the statute.
Under that scenario, Trump could nominate a permanent attorney general and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., could refuse to bring that nomination up for a vote, leaving it pending and allowing Blanche to lead the department without a deadline, legal experts say.
But with that plan, Thune could face pressure from within his own caucus from lawmakers who want to see the Senate play a role in the confirmation process, said David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law.
“Senator Thune has his own political constituencies and vulnerabilities,” Super said. “And whether he’s willing to cooperate with a plan that structurally eliminates the Senate’s role, I think is questionable.”
“There’s certainly potential for abuse here, but it’s not an unobstructed path for the president,” Super said.
Thomas Berry, director of constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, said Blanche could be leading the department under a separate statute, known as Section 508, that allows the deputy attorney general to “exercise all the duties” of the attorney general’s office, in the case of a vacancy. That statute has been interpreted to simply allow for the deputy attorney general to serve as the acting attorney general “indefinitely,” Berry said.
The Justice Department did not respond to questions regarding Blanche’s designation as acting attorney general.
Outlook
Blanche, in a press conference this week, made it clear that his fate is up to the president, adding that working for Trump is the “greatest honor of a lifetime.”
“If President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and I go back to being the DAG, that’s an honor,” Blanche said.
The vacancy has spurred public speculation over who might be a permanent replacement for Bondi. But, according to a report last week from The Wall Street Journal, Trump has not decided on any one person and is interested in seeing how Blanche performs.
Any nominee for the permanent gig would face a different political landscape now — as the 2026 midterm elections draw nearer — than Bondi encountered on Capitol Hill in early 2025, as the new administration swept into Washington and Trump returned to power.
GOP senators, during Trump’s second term, have shown great deference to the White House when it comes to presidential nominees. But the confirmation process has not been a glide path for all.
Before Trump picked Bondi, he selected former Rep. Matt Gaetz. The Florida Republican dropped his bid to become Trump’s attorney general amid uncertainty over whether he would be able to get enough support from Republican senators.
