Acting AG Blanche says Trump administration is nixing $1.8B 'Anti-Weaponization Fund'

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed during testimony before a House subcommittee on Tuesday that the Trump administration is backing down from establishing a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to benefit allies of President Donald Trump following heavy pressure from Republican congressional leadership.

"Look, we're not moving forward with the fund," Blanche said in an exchange with ranking Democrat Rep. Grace Meng. "The reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them. The reasons for the fund, I think, were -- remain as important as they were before, but we are not moving forward with the fund."

But near the conclusion of the hearing, Blanche repeatedly declined to put his commitment in writing.

"I don't know what the purpose of putting something in writing. I'm telling you what we're doing, meaning, like, what's the -- why do I need to put something in writing if I'm telling you what we're doing?"

Meng noted the original settlement announcement establishing the fund was in writing and that Blanche wasn't technically under oath in the hearing.

"I think a lot of Americans, both sides of the aisle, are concerned about it, and it would restore a lot of trust about this issue," Meng said.

"I'm not committing to doing anything in writing. Ok, I mean, I'll take it under advisement," Blanche said.

The Justice Department currently faces multiple lawsuits over the fund where it will likely need to put such a commitment in writing in order to have the cases dismissed.

Though that still might not resolve the recent decision by the federal judge in Florida who originally oversaw Trump's Internal Revenue Service lawsuit to press for answers from DOJ over whether the administration may have committed a fraud against her court, given Blanche explicitly said Tuesday that the department is not rescinding the original settlement agreement.

The order from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams followed a filing by a bipartisan group of former federal judges requesting that she reopen the case to probe whether the creation of the settlement -- as well as an addendum that precluded the IRS from investigating Trump and his family's tax returns -- amounted to unlawful collusion. Williams ordered the attorneys to file a response before June 12

The fund was created in exchange for Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russ