The Senate Judiciary Committee of the United States took a decisive step on Tuesday by backing the nomination of Todd Blanche as Attorney General, thus overcoming a key hurdle for the appointee of President Donald Trump, who currently holds the position on an interim basis, to fully assume control of the Department of Justice.
With a Republican majority, the committee advanced the proposal by twelve votes to ten, leaving behind the reservations expressed by two conservative senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, regarding the fund created to compensate alleged victims of "instrumentalization" of Justice in previous administrations, an issue that had caused the postponement of the vote.
After this endorsement, the nomination will now go to the full Senate, where Republicans control 53 seats compared to the 47 held by the opposition.
Blanche announced on Monday that he had decided to officially revoke the controversial fund, estimated at 1.7 trillion dollars (1.4 trillion euros), after Republicans in the upper chamber threatened to block his appointment.
Cornyn and Tillis had also expressed their opposition to Blanche's candidacy due to the way he handled the documentation related to the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, particularly after the leak of personal data of the victims.
This fund was included in the settlement agreement reached between the occupant of the White House and the U.S. Treasury following the leak of his tax return to several media outlets by a former contractor of the agency, currently in prison.
The agreement also stipulated that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) could not review Trump's previous tax returns, those of his family members, or his companies, a clause that critics of the magnate interpreted as an attempt to shield himself financially.