Blanche Rescinds $1.8 Billion Trump Fund on Paper. Two GOP Senators Say That's Enough.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche moved Sunday to rescind a May 18 order that created an $1.8 billion fund for people who claimed they were victims of politically motivated prosecution under the Biden administration. The move was aimed at unlocking his stalled confirmation vote.

The Senate Judiciary Committee had delayed advancing Blanche's nomination for weeks over objections from two Republicans, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Both had said they wouldn't support Blanche until the fund was killed, on paper, in writing.

Blanche posted two documents to X on Sunday evening. One rescinds the May 18 order: "The Attorney General's May 18, 2026 Order establishing the Anti-Weaponization Fund... is rescinded and shall have no force or effect. This Order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund," the order states, according to voz.us. The second clarifies that tax immunity granted by the Justice Department applies only to the plaintiffs in the underlying case, President Trump, his sons, and their businesses, not more broadly.

Cornyn and Tillis took the deal. "We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon," the two senators said in a joint statement. They credited the written order with addressing concerns "multiple of our Republican colleagues share." The committee is scheduled to vote on Blanche's nomination Tuesday.

Critics are flagging a central problem: rescinding the order that created the fund doesn't touch the settlement agreement underneath it. That settlement came out of a lawsuit Trump filed seeking billions in damages over the unauthorized release of his tax returns. Blanche himself acknowledged at his confirmation hearing that Trump or his sons, as plaintiffs in that case, could still sue to enforce the original settlement and try to force the fund back into existence.

Brandon DeBot, policy director at the Tax Law Center at NYU, didn't mince words. "These assurances are not worth the paper they're written on," DeBot said in a statement reported by The Guardian. "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."

An executive order can be rescinded by the same office that issued it, with no outside enforcement mechanism. A settlement agreement is a contract, and if it's still standing, the parties to it can go to court to enforce it. Cornyn and Tillis got the former. Critics wanted the latter.

Trump didn't help the "this is settled" narrative. He spent the weekend praising the fund and threatening to revive it, and on Monday he was still talking it up. "These people were treated so horribly, and this fund could've given them some solace," Trump said. Asked about Blanche's agreement with the senators, he added: "I don't know what they agreed to." That's the sitting president saying he hasn't reviewed the deal his own acting attorney general just cut to save a Cabinet nomination.

Democrats piled on. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called the tax provision "an unprecedented, unconscionable benefit worth $100s of millions" and said "lipstick on this rancid grift is no excuse to confirm him," according to Common Dreams. Sen. Alex Padilla of California said the deal is "full of loopholes" that wouldn't stop Trump "from using taxpayer money to pay off January 6th insurrectionists" and is pushing legislation to permanently ban such payouts. Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia called it "insane corruption." Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the order does nothing to actually prevent DOJ and Trump from recreating the fund down the road. Rep. Daniel Goldman said Blanche "has demonstrated over and over that he is purely a vessel for Trump to punish his enemies and reward his 'allies.'"

Cornyn and Tillis are elected Republicans who ran their own negotiation, got something specific in writing, and judged it sufficient. They didn't fold for nothing. A written, signed order stating "there is no Fund" is a real document with real political cost attached if Trump tries to reverse it. Reneging on it publicly would hand Democrats and any remaining GOP skeptics a clean line of attack heading into future confirmation fights. Whether that political cost functions as an actual deterrent, or whether it's just theater until the next news cycle, is the genuine unresolved question.

The Washington Post reported, as cited by Common Dreams, that Blanche's written statement "appeared to fall short of what Cornyn and Tillis were demanding last week," when the two senators had originally wanted actual revisions to the underlying settlement agreement, not just a rescission of the order built on top of it. That's the gap nobody's closed.

Trump added another wrinkle Thursday, saying he could temporarily withdraw Blanche's nomination and renominate him later, after Cornyn and Tillis leave office in January, according to voz.us. Whether that's a serious plan or a shot at two Republicans who briefly stood in his way, the Judiciary Committee vote set for Tuesday is the next concrete checkpoint. No court has ruled on whether the underlying settlement remains enforceable, and no legislation banning fund payouts, like the bill Padilla is pushing, has passed.