GOP holdouts say they will back Blanche's attorney general nomination
after striking deal over fund
[August 04, 2026]
By MARY CLARE JALONICK and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Republican senators who threatened to block acting
Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation to lead the Justice
Department said Monday that they will support his nomination, ending an
impasse over plans to create a fund to compensate allies of President
Donald Trump.
The endorsement from GOP Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis paves the way
for the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance Blanche's nomination on
Tuesday after the Justice Department and lawmakers reached a deal to
formally rescind the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund" proposed to
settle Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
Cornyn and Tillis had refused to back Blanche's bid for the permanent
post without official confirmation killing the fund meant to compensate
people who believe they were unfairly prosecuted by the Justice
Department. Blanche's written order, issued late Sunday, came after the
days of negotiations between the Justice Department and the Republican
senators who are leaving Capitol Hill when their terms end in January.
“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for
working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his
nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon," Cornyn, of
Texas, and Tillis, of North Carolina, said in a statement.
DOJ order says ‘beyond any doubt’ that fund is dead
Blanche has repeatedly said that the Justice Department was scrapping
plans for the fund, which sparked bipartisan outcry over the possibility
that violent rioters who attacked police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,
2021, could be considered for payments. But skeptical lawmakers said
they were concerned that could be revived without a commitment in
writing, especially because Trump has continued to defend the idea.
In his order posted on social media late Sunday, Blanche wrote that the
department was confirming "beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund.”
Since the settlement of the president's lawsuit against the IRS was
announced, “No Members were appointed; no funds were transferred; no
process for receiving claims was established; no claims were paid,” the
order said. “This order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no
Fund.”
Cornyn and Tillis had also pressed the Justice Department to limit the
scope of a separate piece of the settlement that provided broad immunity
for Trump and members of his family from tax audits.
Under the deal, the Justice Department clarified in writing that the tax
audit immunity agreement “applies by its terms only retroactively” to
claims open at the time of the settlement and does not protect the
president from examination of future tax filings. It also makes clear
that only the parties that brought the lawsuit — Trump, two of his sons,
and the Trump Organization — are covered by the tax agreement.
Cornyn and Tillis said in their statement that they were “pleased” with
the concessions made by Blanche.
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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears before the Senate
Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 15, 2026.
(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
“From the outset, we were clear that we needed a written document
addressing our concerns on the IRS audit agreement and the
anti-weaponization fund that included constraining the scope of audit
protection by limiting it to the parties of the Settlement Agreement and
legally ending the anti-weaponization fund," they wrote.
Democrats, however, noted that the order rescinding the fund doesn't
stop the Trump administration from compensating Jan. 6 rioters through a
previously established process that allows people to file claims for
damages if they believed they were wronged by the government.
“This supposed ‘deal’ doesn’t prevent payouts to violent
insurrectionists in the future,” Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said in a
social media post. Schiff added that it also “leaves in place a
tax-immunity deal that could help Trump skip taxes on the $2.3 billion
he made last year, and still leaves it vague who and what is covered.”
Cornyn, Tillis echo GOP colleagues' concerns as they blocked Blanche
nomination
Blanche’s nomination was thrown into doubt last week after the Judiciary
Committee postponed a vote that had been scheduled for Thursday morning
as Tillis and Cornyn said they needed more from the administration
before they could provide the necessary votes.
After the Thursday vote was delayed, Trump said in a social media post
that he might pull Blanche’s nomination and resubmit it after Cornyn and
Tillis leave office next year. And on Saturday the president threatened
to push forward with the fund if the two Republicans blocked Blanche's
nomination.
On Sunday evening, Trump said that people who had faced charges from the
Jan. 6, attack on the Capitol and could have benefited from the fund had
“their lives destroyed.”
“This would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffered,” Trump
said. “A lot of people like it.”
Blanche, who served as Trump’s defense lawyer in his criminal cases,
entered the Justice Department last year as deputy attorney general. He
was elevated to the top post after Pam Bondi was fired in April by
Trump, who was frustrated by her failure to successfully prosecute his
political enemies.
Though Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent job, he
has moved quickly since taking the reins of the department to promote
the Trump administration’s agenda and accelerate investigations into the
president’s perceived foes.
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