President Donald Trump said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche “should be immediately approved” as his permanent pick for for the role and defended a controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” that’s at the crux of why the nomination has not yet moved forward.
Trump’s comments in a social media post on Friday come a day after the president said he wouldn’t object to “temporarily withdrawing” Blanche’s nomination until after the Republicans who are withholding their support, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, are out of office.
While Blanche has already said the controversial fund is “dead” and the Justice Department told courts the program was abandoned, Cornyn has demanded written assurances that the fund will not be revived.
In the Friday post, the president again criticized Cornyn and insisted that the fund, which was the result of a settlement agreement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service, would not have benefitted him personally. Rather, he said it was intended for those “whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed” by the Biden administration.
“I felt that they should be given compensation for what has been done to them,” Trump said.
