Blanche confronts skeptical questioning of fund, tax deal for Trump at
Senate confirmation hearing
[July 16, 2026]
By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confronted
skeptical questions at a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday about the
creation of a fund to compensate President Donald Trump's allies and a
tax immunity deal for the president as he aimed to lock down the
Republican support needed to advance his nomination.
Blanche insisted that the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,”
which was scrapped after fierce bipartisan backlash, was “not moving
forward.” But lawmakers, including Republican Sen. John Cornyn, conveyed
concerns that the Trump administration has yet to commit in writing that
the fund is dead and could therefore conceivably be resurrected.
“Just to be clear, the president of the United States, who's a plaintiff
in this lawsuit, has not agreed in writing to delete the weaponization
fund and there’s no guarantee that he or one of the other plaintiffs"
won’t raise the issue in the future, Cornyn asked. Blanche replied that
Trump has no power over the fund, which was to have been administered by
the Justice Department but was never launched.
Cornyn's questions were closely watched since Blanche requires the
backing of all Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and the Texas
senator has not committed his support.
The hearing arrived at a tumultuous time for the Justice Department,
with mass firings and resignations having hollowed out the workforce and
Democrats and other critics raising alarms that Blanche is still
functioning as Trump's personal lawyer. He has led the department on an
interim basis since April, functioning as the public face of the
maligned fund and accelerating investigations into perceived Trump
adversaries. Even as he said the fund was shelved, he made clear that
immunity from tax audits afforded to Trump this year remained in place
despite a congressional outcry.
Those actions, plus the flawed release of files from the Jeffrey Epstein
sex-trafficking investigation, received fresh scrutiny Wednesday.
“You’re in charge of a Department of Justice I don’t recognize,
prosecuting the president’s political enemies, firing rank and file
prosecutors and FBI agents,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware
told Blanche. “These are some actions that in your previous confirmation
hearing before us, you said you would not take.”
Blanche, for his part, pointed to investigations into Trump during the
Biden administration to argue that he had inherited a politicized
Justice Department.
“In recent years, we watched the Justice Department turned against many
of you and a former president, and it damaged the public’s faith in
justice,” Blanche argued. “We are fixing that."
Blanche will need the support of each Republican on the panel
Key to Blanche's confirmation are Cornyn of Texas, who in May lost his
primary, and Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who has opted
not to seek reelection. In the final stretches of their Senate career,
both are seen as more likely than before to split from Trump and both
have been outspoken critics of the fund the Trump administration created
to compensate people who feel unjustly persecuted by the criminal
justice system.
After questioning Blanche, Cornyn told CNN he continues “to have some
concerns” and is not “going to make any decisions at this point.” Tillis,
meanwhile, indicated during questioning that he is likely to support
Blanche, even as he said he wanted “to stick a fork in this turkey of a
1776 fund."
The death of South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was a
member of the committee, left 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats on the
panel. With Democrats united in solidarity against Blanche, =a no-vote
by even a single Republican on the panel would scuttle Blanche's
nomination.
Blanche insists the fund is dead. Lawmakers aren't so sure
The fund emerged from a settlement of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit
against the Internal Revenue Service over his leaked tax returns.
Blanche had initially defended the initiative only to later reveal that
it was being scrapped amid fierce bipartisan backlash.
The judge handling the case said in a scathing ruling Monday that Trump
had effectively engaged in self-dealing through the lawsuit. She said
she was troubled Blanche had signed the settlement given his prior
representation of Trump and was concerned the acting attorney general
had given misleading testimony. Blanche said Wednesday that he disagreed
“with the judge's insinuations about me.”
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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears before the Senate
Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July
15, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Blanche also defended a separate element of the settlement that
afforded Trump and members of his family protection from tax audits
and that, he has said, remains on track. He said the deal covers any
existing audits but does not protect the president from examination
of future tax filings.
“Nobody is above the law,” Blanche said. Such a settlement "doesn’t
make any of those individuals above the law.”
Epstein files are also under scrutiny
Blanche was also pressed on the department's staggered release of
the Epstein files, a process beset by problems, including redaction
errors that left exposed nude photos showing the faces of potential
victims.
During a podcast interview with Joe Rogan released Wednesday, Vice
President JD Vance said the administration “absolutely” mishandled
the communications surrounding the files, including when
then-Attorney General Pam Bondi distributed binders of Epstein
documents at the White House to far-right influencers that contained
already-public material.
Blanche acknowledged that “mistakes were made" in the release
process but nonetheless defended the work.
“I want to make sure that the American people know that this
administration, when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, has been more
transparent than any administration,” he said. The Justice
Department only released additional files after Trump bowed to
bipartisan pressure to sign a law forcing the department to do so.
A former federal prosecutor and key member of Trump's defense team
as the Republican battled four indictments, Blanche arrived at the
Justice Department last year as deputy attorney general. At one
point, under friendly questioning from Republican Sen. John Kennedy
about whether he and Trump are friends, Blanche responded: “I’m his
lawyer,” before quickly correcting himself to say he “was his
lawyer.”
He ascended to the top job in April after Trump ousted Bondi, who
had frustrated the White House by struggling to bring successful
cases against Trump's political opponents. Blanche has tried to
satisfy Trump in that regard, including with an indictment of ex-FBI
Director James Comey, another Trump adversary, on charges of
threatening the 47th president by posting a social media photograph
of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47.”
Comey has said the numbers were not a call to violence.
Blanche was also asked about Jan. 6 violence
Tillis, who has said he would not support for attorney general
anyone who equivocates on the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when pro-Trump
rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, asked Blanche if he agreed that
any Capitol Police officer assaulted that day was the “victim of a
heinous crime.” Blanche said he agreed.
Democrats, meanwhile, pressed Blanche on the violence and Trump’s
sweeping clemency action benefiting more than 1,500 people,
including those convicted of violently attacking police.
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse criticized Blanche for comments
at a political conference this year where he appeared to
characterize the Jan. 6 pardons as an administration accomplishment.
Blanche replied that he has “never said that any sort of violence
against law enforcement is appropriate.”
“He has the absolute right to pardon anybody for any reason he sees
fit,” Blanche said of the president. “I am not celebrating that. It
is a fact.”
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Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard and Michael Kunzelman
contributed to this report.
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