(Headline USA) Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has issued a formal order terminating President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate conservatives persecuted during the Biden administration—a move that follows weeks of negotiations with two Republican senators who were blocking his nomination to become attorney general.
A spokeswoman for Texas Sen. John Cornyn, one of the senators holding up Blanche’s nomination, confirmed the deal, which comes ahead of a Tuesday confirmation vote for Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The other GOP senator, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, did not have immediate comment.
Blanche said at a June hearing that the Justice Department would not move forward with the fund to compensate those who believe they were unfairly prosecuted. But Cornyn and Tillis, both members of the Judiciary panel, have said they wanted to see the promise in writing before they endorsed Blanche’s nomination — especially as Trump continued to express support for the idea.
In a statement late Sunday, Blanche said the order came after “good faith discussions.”
“My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions,” Blanche said.
DOJ order says ‘beyond any doubt’ that fund is dead
In a statement accompanying the order, the Justice Department said that “although the Acting Attorney General has repeatedly advised Congress through testimony, including under oath, as well as in written responses, that the Fund is not moving forward, and the Department has repeatedly represented to district courts that the Fund is not moving forward, today’s Order officially rescinds the May 18, 2026 Order.”
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 says. “This order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund.”
The document released by Blanche on Sunday night also limits the scope of another provision of the settlement that provided broad immunity for Trump and members of his family from tax audits.
The deal clarifies 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.
Trump continues to express support for his settlement
The two sides have been negotiating for weeks, but Trump has said repeatedly during the talks that he thinks the fund should go forward and threatened to move forward with it if Blanche was not confirmed.
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.
On Sunday evening, Trump said that people who had faced charges from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protest 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.”
The Justice Department said the court’s demands were “unnecessary.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
