Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche has formally withdrawn President Donald Trump's plan for a fund that could have been used to compensate people prosecuted over the US Capitol riot in 2021 by Trump's supporters. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
The move clears the way for Blanche to be confirmed by US senators to his job on a permanent basis. Trump's Republican Party previously lacked the votes for this to happen because a pair of senators were not sufficiently satisfied by verbal assurances from Blanche that the planned fund was dead.
In a post on X late on Sunday, Blanche said he had "met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions". Attached to Blanche's post was a copy of the written order signed by Blanche. The text says: "This Order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund."
The proposed $1.8bn "anti-weaponisation" fund was announced earlier this year to settle a lawsuit by Trump against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leak of his tax returns. It would have allowed Trump allies to claim compensation for what they say were politically motivated prosecutions by previous administrations.
A second concern held by the two holdout senators was that the deal also shielded the president, his family and their businesses from IRS audits of their past tax returns. They wanted the scope of that to be narrowed. Blanche made a second post on X that said he had clarified language on the IRS immunity.
The fund plan and the tax audit provision prompted alarm among Democrats - and some Republicans - who argued it could result in payment to people who were prosecuted over the US Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, including those convicted of assaulting police officers. Following the backlash, Blanche abandoned the plan. A federal judge also blocked the fund and expressed concerns that it breached ethical guidelines.
Blanche's public statements to senators that the proposal had been scrapped were not enough to satisfy the Republican holdouts. The two senators who went on to stall Blanche's confirmation were John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, whose terms both expire in January. A Cornyn spokesperson told the BBC's US partner CBS News that the senator had "reached an agreement with the Department of Justice" about the fund. Tillis has not yet commented. But in his most recent comments on the issue, which responded to Trump's threat to revive the plan, Tillis expressed concern that the president was still harbouring a plan to set up a "payout pot for punks". He said the political impasse was "unfortunate" because he did consider Blanche, who is Trump's former personal lawyer, to be qualified for the attorney general job.
Prior to Blanche's post on Sunday, Trump himself gave conflicting statements on the future of both the fund and his nomination of Blanche to be America's top law enforcement official. On Friday, he said the fund was "dead", but he subsequently threatened over the weekend to put the plan back on the table if members of his party did not move to approve Blanche. In recent days, he also said he was considering withdrawing Blanche's nomination to be attorney general because the process was stalled. The US Senate judiciary committee has a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, which could include a vote on Blanche's nomination.