Appearing Lawyer Common Todd Blanche testifies throughout a Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Associated Companies listening to on the Dirksen Senate Workplace Constructing in Washington, DC on Could 19, 2026.
Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty Photos
Sen. Mitch McConnell on Thursday blasted Appearing Lawyer Common Todd Blanche for the Division of Justice’s new controversial $1.8 billion “lawfare” fund hours after Blanche met with Republican senators in an effort to assuage their issues about it.
“So the nation’s high regulation enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay individuals who assault cops? Totally silly, morally incorrect – Take your choose,” McConnell, R-Ky., stated in a press release obtained by MS NOW.
McConnell is the previous Senate majority chief.
Blanche, earlier within the day, met with GOP senators as pushback grows in Congress over the concept of paying out settlements to individuals who attacked police through the U.S. Capitol riot in 2021.
The DOJ created the fund as a part of a settlement of an unrelated $10 billion lawsuit by President Donald Trump in opposition to the Inside Income Service.
The fund would purportedly compensate those that allege they had been victims of prosecutorial overreach or worse by the DOJ through the Biden administration, which might embrace lots of of individuals convicted or charged in reference to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.
After the assembly, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., instructed CNBC that Blanche had instructed lawmakers on the assembly that fund cash is “not going towards individuals who assault policemen and other people of authority.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., in an interview with Spectrum Information, referred to as the fund “silly on stilts.”
“It should invariably put us ready the place your taxpayer {dollars} and my taxpayers’ {dollars} might doubtlessly compensate somebody who assaulted a police officer, admitted their guilt, received convicted, received pardoned, and now we’re gonna pay them for that?” Tillis stated.
“That is absurd,” he added. “The American individuals are going to reject this out of hand.”
U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) speaks to reporters, after the weekly Senate Republican caucus coverage luncheon on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., Jan. 28, 2026.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
Blanche’s assembly with GOP senators got here a day after Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., launched a invoice that may bar federal cash from getting used for the DOJ’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” and after two cops who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 filed a lawsuit looking for to have the fund declared unlawful.
Democrats in Congress have referred to as the fund a corrupt “slush fund.”
On Thursday, Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Finance Committee rating member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., launched laws that may slap a 100% tax on any funds from the fund.
Senate Majority Chief John Thune, R-S.D., instructed reporters Thursday, “Proper now we wish to hear the lawyer normal about his view of this and what they intend to do with it.”
“However clearly, our members have very legit questions on it,” Thune stated, including that his caucus has had conversations about “how we’d make it possible for it is fenced in appropriately.”
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Blanche stated commissioners appointed to manage the fund will probably be liable for contemplating a claimant’s conduct in purposes for compensation.
“One of the elements the commissioners have to think about is what the claimant did — the claimant’s conduct,” stated Blanche. “The claimant must say, ‘I assaulted a cop, and I would like cash.'”
“Whether or not the commissioners will give that particular person cash – that claimant – it is as much as them,” the lawyer normal stated. “However that is one of many elements they’ve to think about.
Blanche will appoint all 5 commissioners for the fund.
Blanche, who’s Trump’s former legal protection lawyer, additionally stated the president “doesn’t stand for assaulting regulation enforcement.”
Blanche’s interview got here after a number of Senate Republicans questioned the rationale for the fund.
Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-La., instructed MS NOW he didn’t see “any authorized precedent” for the fund.
“Persons are involved about making their very own ends meet, not about placing a slush fund collectively with no authorized precedent,” Cassidy stated.
Thune himself had stated he was “not an enormous fan” of the concept of the fund, based on MS NOW.
“I do not see a objective for that,” he stated.
Wyden, in a press release on Thursday, stated, “The announcement of this slush fund was staggeringly corrupt even by Trump’s bottom-dwelling requirements.”
