President Donald Trump said Wednesday night that he will nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to run the Justice Department permanently, putting his former personal defense lawyer in line to become the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Trump made the announcement at a White House dinner, telling guests he would direct aide Dan Scavino and others to file the nomination the next day. "We are going to make him permanent attorney general," he said, in remarks Scavino later posted to X. Trump predicted the process would move quickly.

Blanche, 51, has led the department on an acting basis since April, when Trump fired Pam Bondi. He called the nomination an honor, saying he was "honored and humbled" and that he has a good relationship with senators in both parties. His term as acting attorney general is set to expire in the fall, and the nomination would let him stay on if the Senate confirms him before then.

A narrow path through the Senate

Confirmation is far from assured, even with Republicans holding the chamber 53-47.

The nomination first goes to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, where Republicans hold a 12-10 edge. That math leaves Blanche able to lose only a single GOP vote at the committee stage. If he clears it, he would need a floor vote where no more than three Republicans could defect.

Several of the senators who will weigh his nomination have not committed. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a member of the Judiciary panel, said Blanche's odds improve sharply with the weaponization fund "off the table" but added that he remains undecided. Tillis tied his vote to how Blanche handles questions about the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, saying any suggestion that rioters who assaulted police were justified would cost him support.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, also on the committee, said he too is undecided and wants commitments on the role's independence. Cornyn lost his state's Republican primary last month to a Trump-backed challenger, which removes the reelection pressure that has often kept him in line on nominations. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana opposed the fund, and Grassley himself has voiced skepticism.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune was noncommittal. "Hard to say," he told reporters, noting that members tend to defer to the president on key posts but that "nothing's a safe or a sure bet these days."

The fund that turned Republicans

Most of the resistance traces to a single decision. Last month Blanche announced a nearly $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund," structured to compensate people who say the federal government wrongly investigated or prosecuted them.

The fund grew out of a settlement of Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. The same deal included provisions that Blanche says would bar the government from pursuing certain unpaid tax claims against the Trump family.

Critics in both parties seized on the prospect that people convicted in the Capitol attack, including some who assaulted officers, could collect payments, money Blanche declined to publicly rule out. A federal judge in Virginia blocked any payouts late last month, and the department put the plan on hold. Blanche told a House subcommittee on June 2 that the department would not move forward with it.

He would not, however, put that in writing. Pressed by Rep. Grace Meng, the panel's ranking Democrat, on whether he would commit the reversal to paper, Blanche questioned the point of doing so and said he would take the request under advisement.

Trump muddied the picture further. A day after Blanche's testimony, the president called the fund "so important" and described it as "a beautiful thing," and when asked whether it was dead or merely paused, he said he would have to ask the lawyers and did not know. Some lawmakers want a ban codified in law rather than left to a verbal assurance.

How Blanche has run the department

Since taking over, Blanche has moved aggressively to advance Trump's priorities, a record his backers cite as qualification and his critics point to as evidence he still acts as the president's lawyer.

The department under Blanche secured a second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, built around a social media post showing seashells arranged to read "86 47," which officials characterized as a threat to the president. Comey denies it was one. Blanche also brought charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center and indicted Cuba's former president, Raúl Castro, in connection with the 1996 downing of two civilian aircraft.

He has appointed a former Reagan-era prosecutor to lead a Florida investigation into whether past law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against Trump, pulled department press releases tied to January 6 cases, and issued reports faulting prior prosecutions. Blanche has rejected accusations that he politicized the department, framing his work as a correction of what he calls past abuses.

From the defense table to the Cabinet

Blanche came to national attention as the lead lawyer on Trump's defense team. He represented the president in his New York hush money trial, which ended in a conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, and in the two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, neither of which reached trial.

He joined the administration as deputy attorney general, a post the Senate confirmed last year on a near party-line 52-46 vote, before Trump elevated him following Bondi's firing. The dispute over the Epstein files and Bondi's failure to prosecute Trump's perceived opponents drove that shakeup. Now the same Senate that narrowly backed Blanche for the deputy job will decide whether to hand him the department outright.