President Trump on Monday formally nominated Todd Blanche to be the U.S. attorney general, setting up a Senate confirmation battle.
Mr. Blanche, 51, has been serving as acting attorney general since Pam Bondi, the first person to hold the job in Mr. Trump’s second term, was fired in April.
Mr. Trump signaled in recent days that he wanted to nominate Mr. Blanche, his former personal attorney, to the permanent role. He followed through on Monday in a transmission to the Senate.
While running the Department of Justice for the past two months, Mr. Blanche impressed the White House by securing an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey and rolling back gun control measures from the Biden administration.
Mr. Blanche also supported several initiatives that bolstered the administration’s war on fraud.
Yet Mr. Blanche requires Senate confirmation. He was confirmed last year as deputy attorney general in a 52-46 vote along party lines.
It is not certain that Mr. Blanche’s nomination could clear the Senate. It would take only one Republican defector to block him in the Senate Judiciary Committee, or four in a floor vote.
Mr. Blanche previously served as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer in the New York hush-money case that ended in a criminal conviction.
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said he wants assurance that Mr. Blanche can pivot to a public-serving role as the nation’s top law enforcer.
The Democratic National Committee said Mr. Blanche is not capable of making that transition.
“By nominating Blanche, Trump is set on installing a personal fixer at the highest level of government who will protect Trump, his family, and his rich and powerful friends — at the expense of civil rights, the rule of law, and keeping our country safe,” DNC Chairman Ken Martin said.
Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican, spoke favorably of Mr. Blanche but said he wants to be sure that Mr. Blanche condemns the people who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He is likely to seek those assurances during the confirmation battle.
Mr. Blanche told lawmakers last week that the Justice Department won’t move forward with a proposed “anti-weaponization” fund of nearly $1.8 billion to compensate people who’ve been victimized by the department in partisan prosecutions by previous administrations. But the president has not committed publicly to abandoning the proposal.
Mr. Trump predicted a fast confirmation process in a video posted last week.
He said the process is “gonna go, I think, very quickly,” and said that “we are going to make him permanent attorney general.”
• Jeff Mordock and Lindsey McPherson contributed to this report.
