Two Republican holdouts on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination said they got the written assurance they needed that President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is dead.
But the two pages of text on Justice Department letterhead appear to carry little legal weight, according to legal experts.
The documents released late Sunday by Blanche, the acting attorney general, leave ample room for the Trump administration to use other avenues to compensate the president’s allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by federal authorities.
They also keep largely intact a tax-audit immunity deal for Trump and his family, which, along with the fund, was created to settle a lawsuit Trump brought against the IRS over their leaked tax returns.
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Blanche’s order is not signed by Trump or other parties in that underlying litigation, raising doubt about its enforceability, according to experts. And because it’s a Justice Department document, not a court filing, Blanche could undo it with the stroke of a pen if he gets the permanent job.
All told, said Rupa Bhattacharyya, a former Justice Department attorney who managed victim compensation funds for the department, the order “feels like a very political move to get the nomination advanced.”
“It’s not clear to me what authority or legal effect the acting attorney general has to modify the settlement agreement on his own behalf,” Bhattacharyya said. “And there’s nothing that stops him from getting confirmed and then rescinding the order that rescinded the order.”
Lawyers in a federal lawsuit challenging the fund were not convinced, either. In a letter Monday to the Justice Department, they called on officials to back up Blanche’s assertions in court. They asked the government to tell them by 5 p.m. whether the Justice Department will file a written declaration saying under penalty of perjury that the fund would not proceed.
“The Trump-Vance administration cannot ask the public or our clients to accept a late-night social media post in place of legally binding action,” said Skye Perryman, who heads Democracy Forward, the legal advocacy group representing the plaintiffs.
Even a Trump ally and prominent backer of the anti-weaponization fund, Mike Howell of the conservative Oversight Project, acknowledged on social media how easily Blanche could reverse his order.
“Can be undone after Tuesday,” Howell wrote over Blanche’s post of the document. “The Anti-Weaponization Fund is great.”
Blanche published the order in an 11 p.m. social media post, calling it the product of “good faith discussions” with lawmakers who were concerned about the settlement in Trump’s IRS lawsuit.
Some lawmakers had objected to the possibility that the anti-weaponization fund could be used to pay rioters from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. And they also questioned whether the immunity deal could apply to future tax issues or benefit Trump associates not named in the case.
Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both on the Senate Judiciary Committee, threatened to block Blanche’s nomination without written assurance that the fund had been terminated and the deal modified.
In statements Monday, the senators said they were “pleased” with what they called the “binding” order from Blanche. They are expected to vote along with other Republicans to advance his nomination out of the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning.
The order says a May 18 directive from Blanche establishing the fund “is rescinded and shall have no force or effect.”
“No Members were appointed; no funds were transferred; no process for receiving claims was established; no claims were paid,” the document states. “This order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund.”
The order also purports to limit Trump’s immunity deal, saying that it “applies by its terms only retroactively,” meaning it would not extend to people outside the lawsuit nor protect the president, his sons or their business from possible future audits.
Legal experts and several Democratic lawmakers said the immunity agreement may have still wiped out tens of millions of dollars or more in potential tax liabilities from Trump and his family.
“Lipstick on this rancid grift is no excuse to confirm him,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said of Blanche.
Experts also noted that the Justice Department could still pay out claims to Jan. 6 defendants and others alleging political prosecution under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
“If what the senators are concerned about is that payments are going to be made to Jan. 6 defendants, the fact is, a very large number of them have filed claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act. And the Justice Department could be paying out those claims,” said Bhattacharyya, who is legal director at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law. “The administration never needed the anti-weaponization fund to settle these claims.”
Just last week, the Justice Department agreed to pay a seven-figure settlement to an anti-abortion activist, Paul Vaughn, who was convicted during the Biden administration of blocking access to an abortion clinic. Trump pardoned Vaughn while his case was on appeal.
Speaking with reporters Monday, Trump defended the tax deal and anti-weaponization fund, claiming he and others were wrongfully investigated and prosecuted by previous presidential administrations.
“I view that fund as a positive, and a lot of Republicans do too,” Trump said. “I think Todd Blanche agreed to reconfirm things that he’s already said, and what he said was OK.”
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Barbara McQuade, a former longtime federal prosecutor, said Vaughn’s settlement “shows that they’re not done giving payouts to Trump supporters who claimed to have been the victims of weaponization.”
“They’re just going to do it individually instead of through the settlement fund,” she said. “As a result, this representation by Blanche isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
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