(AFP) – Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday defended the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate political allies of President Donald Trump who believe they were unfairly prosecuted under the Biden administration. Blanche, testifying before a Senate committee, came under repeated attack from Democrats who criticized the scheme as a corrupt “slush fund” to reward the Republican president’s loyalists with taxpayer money.
“Let’s be clear, what we’re talking about is nothing short of the sitting president of the United States looting the Treasury for his own gain,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington state. “This is corruption that has never been more blatant.” The Justice Department announced the creation of the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” on Monday as part of a settlement in which Trump dropped a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a years-old leak of his tax returns. An addendum to the settlement released by Blanche on Tuesday bars the IRS from pursuing Trump, his family or companies for back tax claims.
Blanche said Trump himself would not be eligible for compensation from the fund and he pushed back against accusations that money is “going to be only given to Republicans or friends of the president.” “Whether you’re Hunter Biden or whether you’re another individual who believed they were a victim of weaponization, they can all apply to this fund,” he said, in a reference to former president Joe Biden’s son, who was convicted of gun and tax crimes while his father was in the White House. Blanche would not rule out that Trump supporters who were convicted of attacking police during the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol would be eligible for payouts. “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were a victim of weaponization,” said Blanche, who is Trump’s former personal attorney and who will appoint the five commissioners to oversee the fund.
Trump issued a mass pardon to January 6 defendants on his first day in office last year. Blanche said the fund was needed to “compensate for what the Democrats and what Biden and what (former Biden attorney general Merrick) Garland did for four years.”
– ‘President’s consigliere’ –
After leaving the White House in 2021, Trump was investigated and charged by special counsel Jack Smith over his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden — which led to the January 6 insurrection — and for allegedly mishandling classified documents. Blanche served as Trump’s defense attorney and both cases were dropped after the Republican won the 2024 presidential election. The personal history between Blanche and Trump came up repeatedly during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, with Senator Jack Reed comparing him at one point to a mafia adviser. “You’re the president’s consigliere,” the Democrat from Rhode Island said.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, accused Blanche of “acting today like the president’s personal attorney.” “And that’s the whole problem,” Van Hollen added. Trump, his two eldest sons Eric and Donald Jr., and the Trump Organization filed a lawsuit against the IRS in January seeking $10 billion in damages over the tax returns leak. A former IRS contractor pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking the tax returns of Trump and other wealthy Americans to the media and received a five-year prison sentence. Since taking office for a second time, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies and issued pardons to political allies. The president has pushed for criminal cases against political opponents, purged government officials he deems disloyal, targeted law firms involved in past cases against him, and pulled federal funding from universities.
© 2024 AFP
