Todd Blanche vociferously defended the Justice Department’s newly established anti-weaponization fund as not limited to President Donald Trump’s allies in the acting attorney general’s first appearance before Congress since assuming his position.
Though the arrangement is “unusual,” Blanche conceded Tuesday, anyone can apply for an official apology or a cut of the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which was announced Monday alongside Trump’s dropping of a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leaking of his tax information.
Questions about the fund’s details dominated the hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Blanche’s testimony strayed significantly from his goal to promote the department’s cornerstone issues under the Trump administration.
Still, the acting attorney general remained short on details of how the fund will be dolled out. None of the five commissioners overseeing the fund has been chosen yet, he said, noting that those commissioners will set guidelines for distributing the payments.
Chief among the issues that Blanche dodged is whether those who assaulted law enforcement officers on January 6, 2021, would be eligible for a payout.
