A pair of Republican senators who threatened to block the confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general said Monday that they will now support his nomination after Blanche issued written confirmation that a controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund is rescinded.
In a joint statement, Senate Judiciary Committee members John Cornyn and Thom Tillis said Acting Attorney General Blanche had met their demand to confirm in writing the termination of the fund that was created as part of the resolution of President Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, as well as to clarify the limitations of an immunity agreement that ended all investigations into tax filings by the president, his family and his businesses.
“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” the senators said. “Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share.”
Cornyn and Blanche announced the agreement late Sunday, and Blanche provided a copy of two documents in a post on social media. The first document, signed by Blanche, says the May 18 order establishing a fund intended to provide compensation for people who claimed they had been wrongly prosecuted by the federal government has been “rescinded.” The second document, which is not signed, states the May 19 order relating to IRS immunity applies “only retroactively.”
Courting controversy: The anti-weaponization fund was controversial from the start, with critics charging that it was little more than a slush fund to pay off Trump’s allies, including those who were arrested for violent acts committed at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, following Trump’s loss to Joe Biden. Lawmakers from both parties expressed reservations about the fund, which the Trump administration backed away from following intense pushback.
Still, the status of the fund remained uncertain, even after the White House signaled that it was dead, with Trump repeatedly saying it was necessary and Blanche resisting efforts to formally declare its termination, even as Cornyn and Tillis held up his nomination. Over the weekend, Trump threatened to revive the fund via legislation in retaliation for the block by Cornyn and Tillis, writing on his social media platform that if Blanche isn’t approved, “I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill, which takes care of those who have been so badly treated by the Crooked Joe Biden (and Obuma!) Administration (I get nothing, although I was treated horribly!), PASSED.”
Blanche’s written statements appear to settle the matter, at least as far as Cornyn and Tillis are concerned. But there are still questions about the documents Blanche has provided. As The Wall Street Journal put it Monday, “It isn’t clear how legally binding or significant the Justice Department’s new commitments are.”
Pesky details: One potential problem is that the original order creating the fund involved three parties — the IRS, the Justice Department and Trump — all of whom were required to agree on any changes. Blanche’s new statements do not appear to alter that structure, raising questions about whether they are valid or could lead to legal challenges.
In addition, although Tillis said he was looking for reassurance that the federal government wouldn’t make payments to anyone who assaulted police officers, as some of the pro-Trump rioters did on January 6 — “Anybody who equivocates and supports the thugs that harm police officers will never get my vote, in committee or on the floor,” Tillis said — Blanche’s statements do nothing to prevent payments to those claiming mistreatment by the federal government. As The New York Times reported last week, the Trump administration is already making payments from a separate fund to people who claimed they were victims of government prosecutions.
The IRS agreement also raises questions. Blanche’s statement is unsigned and appears to contradict the original statement. CNN’s Aaron Blake said Monday that the original document was quite broad and provided Trump with considerable leeway to challenge any IRS actions. “It’s difficult to square that with how limited Blanche says the immunity deal actually is,” Blake said. More fundamentally, it’s not clear that Blanche has the authority to provide immunity from IRS investigations in the first place.
Critics line up: Blanche’s new statements have drawn serious criticism from both politicians and legal experts.
“These assurances are not worth the paper they’re written on,” Brandon DeBot, policy director of the New York University Tax Law Center, told the Journal. “They don’t do anything new to stop the president from trying to bring back the fund, as he threatened to this weekend. It’s abundantly clear we need congressional action.”
Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, a long-time Trump foe, noted that the Trump administration is still free to reward those who have claimed they were harmed for being prosecuted for their actions on January 6. “This supposed ‘deal’ doesn’t prevent payouts to violent insurrectionists in the future,” he said. It doesn’t prevent the [administration] from bringing the slush fund back from the dead next week.”
Dan Greenberg, a senior legal fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said the agreement may just be a way for Cornyn and Tillis to show they are making serious demands. “But once you become familiar with the particulars of this situation, it doesn’t really look like they’re driving much of a bargain at all,” he told the Associated Press.
Even if the anti-weaponization fund remains a thing of the past, and the IRS immunity deal is indeed limited, Trump still stands to gain considerably from the agreements. There’s now a good chance the Senate will confirm his former personal lawyer as the chief law enforcement officer in the country, and even a merely backward-looking immunity deal from the IRS could be worth more than $100 million to the president, who was reportedly facing the threat of a major ruling against him by the tax agency for filings that occurred years ago.
What comes next: With the backing of Cornyn and Tillis, the Judiciary Committee is expected to approve Blanche’s nomination on Tuesday. That would clear the way for a vote on the Senate floor before lawmakers leave town for their summer break at the end of the week, though it’s not clear whether Blanche has sufficient support to win a majority of the vote.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the Republicans who said she was undecided about Blanche, said Monday that the fact that he signed an agreement about the anti-weaponization fund was “a pretty good step,” adding that “it says a lot” that Cornyn and Tillis are satisfied with his statements.