By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Richard Cowan and Susan Heavey
CAMP DAVID, Maryland/WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said his “anti-weaponization” fund was dead despite his affinity for it amid a standoff with fellow Republicans in the Senate that has stalled his bid to get acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche in the role permanently.
“It is dead, but I wish it weren’t, to be honest with you. I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused,” he said during a cabinet meeting, one day after threatening to withdraw the nomination until next year after two key opposing senators leave office. “I’d like to see them compensated for the pain.”
He urged Republican senators to confirm Blanche and warned that they “will never get anybody like him.” He also criticized Senator John Cornyn for holding up Blanche’s nomination, claiming that the Republican lawmaker supported Blanche until Trump endorsed Cornyn’s primary opponent.
“I’d be upset also,” Trump said. “I fully understand it. He shouldn’t be that way. I shouldn’t be that way.”
Cornyn and fellow Republican Senator Thom Tillis have held up Blanche’s nomination while seeking written assurances that the Justice Department will not set up the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” program. Trump critics have derided it as a slush fund to reward supporters with taxpayer money.
Blanche has previously told senators that the fund was dead, but has so far not agreed to put that in writing.
Earlier in the day, Trump defended Blanche in a social media post, calling for his confirmation and referring to the fund in the present tense.
Tillis said Trump’s post indicated he thought it was operational.
“The president made it clear today that the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund is still alive, which is exactly why we are attempting to formally end it,” Tillis said in a post on X. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s statement that the fund was dead.
Tillis said he would keep working to break the impasse and blamed “an incompetent personal advisor” to Trump for standing in the way of a settlement.
Cornyn and Tillis, whose Senate terms end in early January, were closer to an agreement after meeting with Blanche late Thursday afternoon, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer who was named acting attorney general in April, has also met with Republican Senator John Curtis.
Despite the dispute, Blanche likely does not need to be confirmed to effectively serve as attorney general for Trump’s remaining term in the White House, given that acting officials can serve as long as their nomination is pending in the Senate and their nomination is not formally rejected or withdrawn.
The “anti-weaponization” fund was crafted as part of a legal settlement between Trump and the Justice Department to resolve his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over allegedly mishandling his tax records, but it was put on hold amid opposition from congressional Republicans.
The fund could benefit Trump allies who have said they were unfairly targeted by the federal government for their involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol after Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020.
Cornyn on Thursday said he was waiting for the Justice Department to formalize assurances that it would not implement the fund. Cornyn and Tillis also object to an IRS deal that would prevent tax audits of Trump and his associates.
Trump wrote that the fund “will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed.”
Tillis said those who attacked law enforcement should still be in prison and should not get a check from the federal government.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Steve Holland; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)
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