Key keywords: Todd Blanche confirmation, Senate Judiciary Committee, federal judicial nomination, Donald Trump legal counsel, 2020 election legal challenges, presidential immunity cases, judicial ethics rules Newly unearthed records released by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week have significantly strengthened opposition to Todd Blanche’s nomination to a lifetime federal judgeship in the Southern District of New York, adding mounting evidence of undisclosed conflicts of interest and problematic professional conduct that critics say make him unfit for the bench. Blanche, best known as a lead personal legal counsel for former President Donald Trump in his 2023 Manhattan hush money criminal trial and multiple 2020 election interference cases, failed to disclose at least three previously unreported legal engagements for Trump’s political action committees related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in swing states, according to the new documents. He also omitted more than $1.2 million in legal payments from Trump’s Save America PAC from his initial financial disclosure forms submitted to the committee, a violation of mandatory Senate disclosure rules for judicial nominees. During his initial confirmation hearing earlier this month, Blanche repeatedly refused to give a clear commitment to recuse himself from any future cases involving Trump, election administration, or presidential immunity claims, stating only that he would “follow standard judicial ethics protocols” when evaluating potential conflicts. Judicial ethics experts have emphasized that the depth of Blanche’s professional and financial ties to Trump, combined with his public record of advocating for Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020, create an unavoidable appearance of bias that would undermine public trust in his rulings if he is confirmed. Critics also point to a previously unreported 2018 case from Blanche’s tenure as a federal prosecutor, in which a judge sanctioned his team for improperly withholding exculpatory evidence from defense counsel, as further evidence of his failure to uphold core legal integrity standards. While Republican members of the Judiciary Committee initially defended Blanche as a highly qualified litigator with a long track record in both public and private practice, at least three moderate GOP senators have announced in the past 48 hours that they will delay their support for his nomination until he submits a full, corrected disclosure filing and appears for a second round of questioning to address the new allegations. With the Senate split narrowly between the two parties, even a small number of Republican defections would be enough to sink Blanche’s confirmation, marking a rare rebuke of a presidential judicial nominee from members of the nominating party’s own caucus.