President Donald Trump on Monday formally nominated Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, moving to install his former personal lawyer as the top U.S. law enforcement official.

Trump submitted Blanche’s nomination to the U.S. Senate, the White House said, days after Trump committed to giving Blanche, who has been serving as acting attorney general since April, the permanent nod.

The nomination is a vote of confidence in Blanche after the Justice Department was forced to backtrack from a plan to create a nearly $1.8 billion fund for victims of what Trump has called government “weaponization.” The plan drew fierce backlash, much of it directed at Blanche, from Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Bhargav Acharya in Toronto; EDiting by Sanjeev Miglani)