Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer on a permanent basis is in limbo, as two Republican senators continue to demand that the Justice Department formally kill a proposed $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund and address other concerns about a controversial settlement of President Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina are threatening to derail Blanche’s nomination unless they receive the assurances they have sought. Cornyn told reporters Tuesday that a Senate Judiciary Committee vote set for Thursday could be postponed and that he had not yet received a response from the Justice Department regarding his demand that the “anti-weaponization” fund be formally halted.
“They’ve been kind of radio silent for the last 24 hours,” Cornyn told reporters. “I think my staff is talking to them, but we’re not — they know what they need to do. They just don’t want to do it.”
Cornyn said he hoped a postponement would not be necessary.
“If there’s not enough votes to confirm him, then Sen. [Chuck] Grassley might decide to postpone it. But I don’t think that’s the No. 1 goal right now,” Cornyn said, referring to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
With no Democrats expected to back him, Blanche needs the support of both GOP holdouts for his nomination to advance. He has repeatedly insisted in testimony to lawmakers that the “anti-weaponization” fund is dead and the Justice Department won’t move forward with it, but he has refused to put that commitment in writing. Trump has also publicly defended the deal, raising the possibility that he might look to resurrect it.
The nearly $1.8 billion fund, meant to compensate people who claim they were improperly targeted by the federal government, was announced in May as part of a highly unusual settlement by the Trump-led Justice Department of a lawsuit the president brought against the IRS over an earlier leak of his tax records. A former IRS contractor was sentenced to five years in prison for that 2019-2020 leak.
The announcement of the “anti-weaponization” fund drew immediate pushback, as lawmakers and government watchdog groups warned that it would amount to a slush fund of taxpayer money that the administration could direct to Trump allies, including people who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The settlement of Trump’s IRS lawsuit also included an agreement that shielded Trump, his family and his businesses from tax audits. That portion of the agreement was weakened or essentially voided earlier this month by a federal judge, who ruled that the suit was an improper attempt to manipulate the legal system.
At a confirmation hearing earlier this month, Cornyn pointed to the text of the settlement agreement, which says that it “may be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties.”
“We just need for the documents to conform to what his testimony was at the hearing where he said the weaponization fund is dead, he said the immunity from future audits does not extend to people beyond the parties to the lawsuit, and he said it wasn’t intended to release further actions by other agencies other than the IRS,” Cornyn told reporters, according to The Hill.