Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a formal order late on Sunday, August 3, 2026, shutting down Donald Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" and canceling the May order that created it. The move followed weeks of talks with two Republican senators who had been blocking his nomination to become attorney general, and it clears a path for a Senate committee vote scheduled for Tuesday, August 5. The Guardian Reuters

Texas Senator John Cornyn, one of the two Republicans holding up the nomination, had his spokesperson confirm the agreement. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, the other Republican senator blocking the nomination, had no immediate comment. Both senators' objections centered on the fund's structure and scope, though they arrived at their concerns from different angles. Cornyn had questioned Blanche on the fund during confirmation hearings, and Blanche stated that others cannot force the Department of Justice to move forward with the weaponization fund. Cornyn Senate Office

The fund came out of a settlement agreement that told the Attorney General to set up the fund within 30 days. The Justice Department formally announced the fund on May 19, 2026, with $1.776 billion allocated to it. Under the original terms, the fund was to have five members and was required to stop processing claims by December 1. DOJ OPA

The broader settlement that created the fund also included a provision giving Trump and his family wide-ranging protection from tax audits. Blanche's order on Sunday did not stop at the fund itself. The document also narrowed that settlement provision, clarifying that the tax audit protection applies only to claims that were already open at the time of the settlement, not to future tax matters. That narrowing addressed scrutiny from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who had renewed a probe into what he called the "cop-beaters slush fund" and the Trump family tax fraud amnesty deal ahead of Blanche's nomination hearing, noting that Blanche had approved the settlement. Whitehouse Senate Office

Democratic senators had pressed Blanche on the fund repeatedly during his confirmation hearing. Senator Mazie Hirono pressed Blanche on his failure to shut down the fund and obtained a commitment from him on the record. Senator Chris Coons questioned Blanche on the proposed $1.8 billion fund that Blanche had attempted to create for President Trump. Senator Alex Padilla issued a statement criticizing Blanche for establishing what he termed a "slush fund." Hirono Senate Office Coons Senate Office Padilla Senate Office

Earlier on Sunday evening, Trump publicly defended the fund's intended beneficiaries, saying that people who faced charges from the January 6 attack on the Capitol and could have benefited from the fund had "their lives destroyed." The fund had been designed to compensate individuals who, in the administration's framing, were targets of politically motivated prosecutions. Blanche himself had previously described the initiative as a corrective, stating that the "weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again" as the Justice Department "restores integrity to its prosecutorial system." DOJ OPA

The broader context here is how individual senators can pressure a nominee when their party holds a slim majority. Cornyn and Tillis, both Republicans, extracted real concessions from a nominee of their own party's administration. The narrowed tax audit provision suggests that the settlement's original language was broad enough to worry not only Democratic critics but also GOP senators who questioned whether the deal's protections went too far.

The timeline is tight. A Senate committee vote on Blanche's nomination was scheduled for the Tuesday after the announcement, giving the order roughly 36 hours to settle the political landscape before senators vote. Whether the concessions satisfy Cornyn and Tillis fully, and whether the narrowed tax audit provision satisfies Whitehouse's probe, will determine whether Blanche clears the committee and advances to a full Senate vote. The fund itself, created in May and shut down in August, never processed a single claim.