Trump Justice Department fund faces backlash in Congress

Sen. Mitch McConnell on Thursday slammed Acting Attorney General Todd Branch’s controversial new Justice Department “legal” fund, hours after Mr. Branch met with Republican senators to assuage their concerns.

“So the nation’s highest law enforcement official is asking for slush funds to pay people who assault police officers? It’s completely stupid and morally wrong. You can take your pick,” McConnell, R-Kentucky, said in a statement obtained by MS NOW.

McConnell is a former Senate Majority Leader.

Blanche met with Republican senators earlier in the day amid pushback in Congress over the idea of ​​paying settlements to those who attacked police during the 2021 Capitol riot.

“I think the stilts are stupid,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-RN.C., said in an interview with Spectrum News about the $1.8 billion fund created to resolve President Donald Trump’s unrelated lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.

The fund is supposed to compensate people who say they were victims of prosecutorial overreach or worse by the Justice Department under the Biden administration, including potentially hundreds of people convicted or charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

“That always puts us in a position where, with your taxpayer money and my taxpayer money, we could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer, pled guilty, was convicted, was pardoned, and now are we going to make them pay for it?” Tillis said.

“That’s absurd,” he added. “The American people will completely reject this.”

Blanche’s meeting with Republican senators came a day after Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) introduced a bill that would ban the use of federal funds for the Justice Department’s anti-weaponization fund, but after two police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 filed a lawsuit seeking to declare the fund illegal.

Congressional Democrats call the fund a corrupt “slush fund.”

On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Senate Finance Committee member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced legislation that would tax payments from the fund 100%.

“We now want to hear from the attorney general what his thoughts are on this and what he plans to do about this,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Thursday.

“But, understandably, our members have very legitimate questions about that,” Thune said, adding that his caucus has been talking about “how to make sure it’s properly fenced.”

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Blanche said the commissioners appointed to manage the fund are responsible for reviewing claimants’ conduct in compensation applications.

“One of the factors that the commissioner has to consider is what the plaintiff did, the plaintiff’s conduct,” Blanche told CNN. “The complainant would have to say, ‘I assaulted a police officer and I want money.'”

“Whether the Commissioner hands the money to that person, the claimant, is up to them,” the attorney general said. “But that’s one of the factors they have to consider.

Mr. Blanche will appoint all five members of the fund’s committee.

Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, also said the president “will not condone attacks on law enforcement.”

Blanche’s interview came after several Senate Republicans questioned the basis of the fund.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) told MS NOW he didn’t see “any legal precedent” for the fund.

“People are worried about making ends meet, not about creating a slush fund where there is no legal precedent,” Cassidy said.

According to MS NOW, Thune himself said he “didn’t really like” the idea of ​​the fund.

“I don’t see the purpose of it,” he said.

“The announcement of this slush fund was shockingly corrupt even by President Trump’s rock-bottom standards,” Wyden said in a statement Thursday.