WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to push forward with a fund to compensate his allies if two Republican holdouts will not support his nominee for attorney general, injecting fresh uncertainty into a Senate confirmation vote planed for next week and underscoring once more his interest in securing payouts for supporters who feel unjustly persecuted.Trump asserted in his Truth Social post that he would keep acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in his current role and press ahead on the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” if Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina refuse to back the former federal prosecutor who was key member of Trump’s defense team when the Republican battled four indictments.The administration needs their votes but both lawmakers have protested Blanche’s selection because of a lawsuit settlement that created a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who feel mistreated by the criminal justice system and provided Trump and family members with immunity from tax audits.
In a sign of apparent progress Friday, Trump pronounced the fund “dead.” As negotiations continued into the night, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, rescheduled a committee vote for Blanche that had been postponed earlier in the week.A spokesperson for the committee said Grassley, R-Iowa, would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess and that putting the Tuesday vote on the calendar “gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee.”
