US Senate confirms Trump's ex lawyer as attorney general

President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Todd Blanche was confirmed as US attorney general on Saturday after Senate Republicans shrugged off Democratic concerns over politicization of the Justice Department. Blanche, who has already been serving as the top US law enforcement officer in an acting capacity, represented Trump as his private attorney in several criminal trials before entering government. The Senate, which Republicans narrowly control, confirmed him by 50 votes to 49. Trump, who has upended US political norms by seeking to bring nominally independent government agencies under his increasingly direct control, calls Blanche a "star." Democrats opposed Blanche from the beginning, accusing Trump of turning the Department of Justice into a political weapon. "The attorney general is supposed to be the people's lawyer," Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Tuesday. "Mr Blanche continues to operate as the president's personal lawyer, treating the Justice Department like a law firm serving one client -- the president." There were doubts over whether the White House could persuade a handful of Republican holdouts, without who...