Washington — A bloc of Senate Democrats is demanding additional answers from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, including whether the Justice Department breached its own guidelines when it agreed to establish the disputed program through a settlement with President Trump.
The effort, led by New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, centers on how the fund fits with rules in the Justice Manual for settlement agreements involving payments to outside parties. The four Democratic senators argued that creating the program appears to have strayed from the department’s established internal process.
“The central question this letter demands you answer is not whether the fund will proceed, but whether the head of the Department of Justice ignored the Department’s own rules to carry out an act of corruption designed to benefit the President and his allies,” the Democrats wrote to Blanche. “This question does not become moot simply because courts and public pressure forced the Department to reverse course.”
Booker was joined by Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Adam Schiff of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, each of whom sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The senators requested that Blanche provide responses to their questions about the fund by July 8.
“Your actions to create the Anti-Weaponization Fund raise every concern that DOJ’s rules limiting third-party settlements were designed to address,” they wrote. “These rules exist to prevent DOJ from abusing its broad settlement authority to direct funds to preferred non-governmental entities, an abuse that improperly circumvents the congressional appropriations process and that members of both parties have long condemned. The Justice Manual violations described above represent only one dimension of the illegality of this Fund.”
In a separate move, Booker and every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the panel’s chairman, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, urging him to proceed with a planned Justice Department oversight hearing on July 21 as the committee weighs Blanche’s nomination for attorney general.
The Democrats alleged that Blanche has had an “integral role in the Department’s most outrageous actions since Watergate.” They pointed to federal prosecutions involving Mr. Trump’s perceived political adversaries, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James; the release of the Justice Department’s files related to its investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; and the formation of the “anti-weaponization fund,” among other matters.
“The Committee has constitutional duties before it: to review the fitness of Mr. Blanche to lead the Department of Justice and to conduct regular oversight of the Department of Justice,” the Democrats wrote. “It must honor both duties, which requires that the Committee keep its scheduled oversight hearing of the Department as a separate proceeding. The Department’s conduct demands an accounting, and the American people are entitled to one, whatever the fate of the nomination.”
Mr. Trump nominated Blanche for attorney general earlier this month following the ouster of Pam Bondi from the role in April. Blanche, who was the president’s personal defense lawyer before joining the administration, has been serving as the acting attorney general since then.
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His confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee is set for July 15.
The Justice Department established the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund as part of a deal with Mr. Trump to settle a civil lawsuit he filed against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns by a former government contractor. The fund was designed to “provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” according to the Justice Department.
But the program drew immense pushback from Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill because of concerns that payouts would be made to people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Several lawsuits were also filed challenging the legality of the fund, and a federal judge in Virginia blocked the Justice Department from moving forward with it. In that case, Booker and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, warned that the program was an “immediate and dire threat” to the constitutional order.
While Mr. Trump had defended the fund amid the backlash, Blanche told a House committee earlier this month that the Justice Department is “not moving forward with the fund. Period.” But the acting attorney general refused lawmakers’ request he commit in writing to ending the program, and the Justice Department declined to submit to the Virginia court a sworn declaration from Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the fund is dead.
