Lead

The US Senate judiciary committee voted along party lines to advance Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general, moving his confirmation to the full Senate. The vote came after Blanche confirmed in writing that a planned $1.8bn fund for Donald Trump's allies was dead, according to The Guardian.

Blanche, who has been serving as acting attorney general since Trump fired Pam Bondi in April, had faced a Republican rebellion over his nomination due to the fund. Two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, had threatened to block his nomination unless they received firm guarantees that the fund would be shelved for good.

Coverage comparison

The Guardian reported that the committee's vote was initially postponed this week after Blanche failed to provide written assurances to Cornyn and Tillis. Both senators later said their concerns had been satisfied. Tillis described the anti-weaponization fund as a "payout pot for punks," but said he was satisfied it wouldn't be moving forward.

Blanche signed an order scrapping the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund – a roughly $1.8bn pool of money created in May as part of a settlement ending Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. The settlement resolved a $10bn lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

The fund, which was to be awarded with no restrictions to allies of the president, drew criticism from Democrats and watchdog groups, who warned it could become a taxpayer-funded payout to Trump loyalists, including some defendants from the January 6 Capitol riot.

Key claims

  • The Senate judiciary committee voted to advance Todd Blanche's nomination after he confirmed in writing that the $1.8bn slush fund was dead, as reported by The Guardian.
  • The fund was created as part of a settlement ending Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, according to The Guardian.
  • Critics said the fund risked becoming a taxpayer-funded payout to Trump loyalists, including some January 6 defendants, as reported by The Guardian.
  • Cornyn and Tillis had threatened to block Blanche's nomination over the fund, but later said their concerns were satisfied, according to The Guardian.

Perspectives

Trump's defense

President Trump defended the fund and his supporters, writing on Truth Social that he felt they should be given compensation for what had been done to them. He described his supporters as "a group of people treated so badly in our Nation's history," and added: "I gave up any payments for myself, which would have been substantial... I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure."

Critics' concerns

Democrats and several experts criticized the compromise between Blanche and the Republican senators as weak and ineffective. Brandon DeBot, policy director at the Tax Law Center at NYU, said in a statement: "These assurances are not worth the paper they're written on. They don't pull back on the ongoing attempts to give the president, his family, and his affiliates unauthorized immunity from tax audits. They don't do anything new to stop the president from trying to bring back the fund."

Republican senators' stance

Cornyn and Tillis said they were pleased that the Department of Justice had issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund. They added that the department had acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the treasury.