‘Completely hollow’: critics denounce Blanche deal to halt Trump slush fund

Democrats say agreement – which clears way for Blanche’s confirmation – makes promises president can easily reverse

A compromise between Todd Blanche and two Republican senators that potentially cleared the way for Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general is weak, Democrats and several experts said, as it makes promises Donald Trump can easily reverse.

Blanche, the acting attorney general, posted two documents on Sunday evening showing he was withdrawing an 18 May order allowing for the creation of a $1.8bn weaponization fund and clarifying that broad tax immunity the justice department granted to Trump only applied retroactively to the president, his sons, and businesses.

The agreement stemmed from a deal worked out with senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, two Republicans who had threatened to block Blanche’s nomination. Cornyn and Tillis said on Monday they would support Blanche when his vote comes up for the Senate judiciary committee Tuesday.

“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” Cornyn and Tillis 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.”

But legal experts and Democrats said what Blanche announced Sunday was far from ironclad and left room for Trump to resurrect the fund.

“These assurances are not worth the paper they’re written on,” Brandon DeBot, policy director at the Tax Law Center at NYU, said in a statement. “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, as he threatened to this weekend. It’s abundantly clear we need congressional action.”

Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the judiciary committee, said: “Cornyn and Tillis seem to have gotten nothing. The tax immunity deal is still unlimited in terms of tax control liability, and the slush fund, or the thug fund, as I call it, is still alive and well so far as Donald Trump is concerned.”

The documents Blanche released only say the prior justice department order creating the weaponization fund is rescinded. It does not modify the original settlement agreement creating the fund, reached as the result of a Trump lawsuit seeking billions in damages for the unauthorized release of his tax returns.

In brief comments to reporters, Tillis defended his and Cornyn’s deals, saying the weaponization fund is “rescinded to death” and that the Texas senator had assured him “it would be very difficult for anybody to construe it as some sort of get out of audit free for any kind of future matter”.

Blanche acknowledged during his confirmation hearing that Trump or his sons – the plaintiffs in the case – could theoretically sue to enforce the agreement. Trump spent the weekend praising the slush fund, and even threatened to revive it .

Trump again praised the fund on Monday, saying: “These people were treated so horribly, and this fund could’ve given them some solace.” He added that he had not seen Blanche’s agreement. “I don’t know what they agreed to,” he said.

Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, said Blanche’s announcement does nothing to prevent the justice department and Trump from creating the weaponization fund under a different name.

Raskin said: “These hollow words are an affront to the American people, Congress and the courts, and are clearly designed to lull Senators Cornyn and Tillis into a false sense that their legitimate concerns have been addressed while leaving Blanche’s corrupt scheme fully intact.”

Even if the department does not move ahead with the fund, there is another path for January 6 defendants to receive a payout from the federal government. A once-obscure process under the Federal Tort Claims Act allows anyone to seek damages from the federal government, first by filing a claim and then through a lawsuit.

The justice department has wide discretion over whether to settle those lawsuits and some January 6 defendants are already moving through the process with claims for millions of dollars .

“This supposed ‘deal’ doesn’t prevent payouts to violent insurrectionists in the future,” Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and member of the senate judiciary committee, said in a post on X . “It doesn’t prevent the admin from bringing the slush fund back from the dead next week or using DOJ’s Judgment Fund for the same illicit purpose.”

Republicans and Democrats have harshly criticized the weaponization fund and the tax immunity deal ever since they were announced in mid-May. Both arose out of a $10bn lawsuit Trump, his sons, and business filed against the government for damages over the unauthorized release of his tax returns. The justice department did not even attempt to defend the government in the lawsuit.

A federal judge later said it was a “bad-faith” suit designed to engineer a beneficial result for Trump. The New York Times reported in May that the tax immunity could potentially free Trump of a $100m penalty related to past audits of his tax returns.

“Can you believe the guy, or did he and Trump announce the $1.9bn Trump justice fund in a month, and now we’re back where we started?” asked Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse, another judiciary committee member.

“Or did they open the drive-up window at the Department of Justice for free Federal Tort Claims Act giveaways to any Maga person who asks?”

Referring to Cornyn and Tillis, Whitehouse said: “It doesn’t look to me like they’ve actually pinned down the result they claim to have achieved.”

The fund would have been run by five commissioners, four of whom would have been appointed by the attorney general (the fifth would have been named in consultation with congressional leadership). The fund was not required to disclose how much money it paid and to whom and aside from Trump and his sons, there were no restrictions on who could apply.

The agreement Blanche announced is “completely hollow”, said Virginia Canter, chief counsel and director of ethics and anti-corruption at Democracy Defenders Action. “Nothing changes the terms of the actual settlement agreement, which cannot be modified without all parties’ consent. As a result, Blanche could reverse course tomorrow if he wanted.”

Lawyers for the watchdog group Democracy Forward, which sued over the fund and secured a court order stopping it, sent a letter to the justice department on Monday noting Blanche had still declined to say under oath that the fund was not moving forward.

The organization also asked the justice department whether it would seek to amend the underlying settlement agreement.

“The DoJ and Acting Attorney General Blanche appear to want to have their cake and eat it too,” Skye Perryman, the group’s president, said in a statement. “They ask members of the United States Senate to believe the anti-weaponization fund is dead while they seek to preserve favor with the president through refusing to make real commitments backed up in court regarding the operation and future of the fund.”

Even some Trump allies appeared unpersuaded that Blanche’s announcement amounted to the death of the fund.

Mike Howell, an ally of Trump and director of the Oversight Project, a conservative watchdog group, posted a picture of Blanche’s documents on X and said they “can be undone after Tuesday. The weaponization fund is great.”

Asked about the possibility of Blanche going back on his promises to the Republican senators after being confirmed, Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, said: “Knowing how Trump works … I wouldn’t be surprised.”