Cassidy Says His Vote to Confirm Todd Blanche Wasn't a 'Black or White' Call

WASHINGTON —

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said Sunday that his decision to support Todd Blanche's confirmation as attorney general wasn't a simple choice between right and wrong. "If you're looking for a black or white decision here, you're not going to find it," Cassidy said on CBS News' "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

Cassidy announced his support in a Senate floor speech Friday, clearing the way for the Senate to confirm Blanche in a 50 to 49 vote early Saturday, according to the BBC. Republicans hold 53 seats in the chamber, but with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky absent and GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska opposed, Cassidy's vote decided the outcome, CBS News reported.

A fund at the center of the fight

Much of the resistance to Blanche centered on a $1.8 billion Justice Department fund meant to compensate people who said the federal government had wronged them, according to CBS News. The fund grew out of a settlement resolving a $10 billion lawsuit President Trump had filed over the leak of his tax returns. Blanche told senators in June that the fund was "dead," but Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina kept objecting until last week, when the Justice Department reached an agreement with them and Blanche signed an order rescinding the directive that had created the fund, CBS News reported.

Cassidy told Brennan he still sees the issue as a "gradation of gray" but said he has been assured the effort to revive the fund is "effectively dead." He pointed to Cornyn's own comfort with the outcome, noting Cornyn once served as Texas attorney general. "Took him a while to get there, but the fact that John did was important to me," Cassidy said. "I trust John on that."

Immunity concerns, and a personal reckoning

Cassidy was far more blunt about a separate piece of the settlement that shields Trump's family from certain tax audits and investigations. "That's totally wrong," he said. "No American should be targeted by the law, but no American should be above the law." He said that provision "almost weighed to vote no."

What tipped him toward yes, he said, were conversations with U.S. attorneys in Louisiana, who he said made a strong case for Blanche's leadership. "If you want a DOJ which is actually doing its job, you need stable leadership," Cassidy said.

Cassidy grew emotional describing the vote on the Senate floor Friday, saying he had once read history books as a boy about pivotal Senate moments. "The fact that I, Bill Cassidy, was able to do that, I am so privileged," he said.

The vote came more than a year after Cassidy, a physician, cast another decisive vote to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination as health and human services secretary despite reservations about Kennedy's record on vaccines. The two have clashed repeatedly since.