{"id":1726,"date":"2026-07-31T15:15:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T15:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1726"},"modified":"2026-07-31T15:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T15:15:17","slug":"trump-is-choosing-his-slush-fund-over-todd-blanche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1726","title":{"rendered":"Trump Is Choosing His Slush Fund Over Todd Blanche"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is an edition of The<\/i> Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. <\/i>Sign up for it here.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n

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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Donald Trump blared yesterday on social media, \u201cis a STAR, and everyone knows it!\u201d But the rest of the presidential missive told a very different story. Blanche\u2019s nomination to run the Justice Department has stalled over objections from outgoing Republican Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn to a settlement between Trump and the IRS that would create a $1.8 billion slush fund for rewarding Trump\u2019s political supporters, including those convicted of crimes on January 6, 2021. Tillis and Cornyn have demanded that Blanche deliver written guarantees that the fund would not proceed, and they remain unsatisfied with what they\u2019ve received. Although a deal may still be struck, Trump wrote in his post that he had \u201cno objection to temporarily withdrawing\u201d Blanche\u2019s nomination \u201cand putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office.\u201d<\/p>\n

The senators met with Blanche last night and could still waver, and Trump could still change his mind, but the president this morning posted a strong defense of the slush fund and attacked Cornyn. \u201cJohn Cornyn never had a problem with the so called \u2018Fund,\u2019 which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas,\u201d he wrote. \u201cTodd Blanche, a good man, should be immediately approved as U.S. Attorney General.\u201d<\/p>\n

This moment of peril for Blanche\u2019s nomination reveals three things: First, dissident Republicans really can push Trump around if they want to; second, Trump (as usual) seemingly has no strategy or contingency plan to save the nomination; and third, Trump apparently cares more about preserving the slush fund than he does about Todd Blanche.<\/p>\n

If Trump really valued Blanche, then reaching an agreement with Cornyn and Tillis would be easy: He\u2019d just have to give up on the fund. Not only is the planned payout politically toxic, but courts may prohibit it anyway. The fund emerges from a settlement in a case filed by Trump against the federal government over a leak of his personal tax returns. In exchange for dropping the case, the government agreed to grant Trump and his family immunity from IRS audits and to create a $1.8 billion pot of money for supposed victims of a \u201cweaponized\u201d federal government, such as people prosecuted for their role in the January 6 insurrection.<\/p>\n

The fund is an abomination for several reasons, as my colleague Jonathan Chait wrote when it was announced. The deal was struck between Trump as plaintiff and Trump as head of the executive branch\u2014an arrangement a federal judge later said is improper. It gives the president an opportunity to direct taxpayer money to his allies and supporters\u2014and specifically people who attempted to subvert the 2020 election and rioted at the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n

One federal judge, Leonie Brinkema, is currently blocking the fund\u2019s creation, and another, Kathleen Williams, concluded that the settlement was improper self-dealing and harshly criticized Blanche\u2019s role in negotiating the deal as acting attorney general. Blanche himself told senators that the money wouldn\u2019t be paid out, but as my colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick reported in June, administration officials said privately that it wasn\u2019t really dead. That helps explain why Brinkema has requested a sworn statement from Blanche about the demise of the fund, and why Cornyn (who lost a GOP primary in May) and Tillis (who decided to retire) have said they want written assurances from Blanche.<\/p>\n

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By announcing that he would rather pull Blanche\u2019s nomination, even temporarily, than allow Blanche or any other administration official to provide such assurances, Trump has implicitly confirmed that he has no intention of letting go of the fund. His statement also undercuts Blanche\u2019s credibility with senators because it shows that Blanche was either not telling the truth or was making a promise he couldn\u2019t keep when he said earlier that the fund wouldn\u2019t proceed.<\/p>\n

The idea of renominating Blanche later on may well be a feint anyway, since Trump hates to ever admit defeat, but it\u2019s peculiar. Trump\u2019s unstated premise is that he will have a more favorable Senate in 2027, which is questionable. Cornyn and Tillis are currently preventing Blanche\u2019s nomination from advancing out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and neither man will be on that panel come January. But most forecasts suggest that Democrats will gain ground in the Senate in the midterm elections, and possibly even win a narrow edge in the chamber. Either way, Blanche will still have a hard time getting the necessary votes for confirmation next year.<\/p>\n

That is especially true because Trump\u2019s power over Republican senators appears to be on the wane. For years, senators have trash-talked Trump privately, but meekly followed him in public. Tillis and especially Cornyn made their hesitations about Blanche public weeks ago, and the White House seems to have wagered that they would simply give in as GOP members have in the past. (The administration may have underestimated Cornyn\u2019s taste for revenge against a president who endorsed his opponent in the primary.) At the same time, Trump has been unable to persuade all Republican senators to back the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require people to present proof of citizenship to vote, and they have shrugged off his demands to eliminate the filibuster in order to pass it. After all, they know that they could be in the minority within six months.<\/p>\n

What made Blanche attractive to Trump as an attorney general was not his legal acumen but his eagerness as an enabler. Blanche, who previously served as Trump\u2019s personal attorney, began in the administration as deputy attorney general. Attorney General Pam Bondi was willing to destroy many of the boundaries keeping politics out of the Justice Department, and she pursued many of Trump\u2019s projects of political retribution, but she fell out of favor after some of them stalled and was soon asked to resign. When Blanche became acting attorney general in April, he set out to fulfill Trump\u2019s desires with zeal.<\/p>\n

That was enough to win Blanche a nomination to hold the job permanently, but it also made his path to confirmation more perilous. Now Trump has little reason to fight for his nomination. Since Blanche is already deputy attorney general, the president can leave Blanche as acting attorney general indefinitely, even without confirmation. That would surely be a disappointment to Blanche, who worked so hard to win Trump\u2019s favor, but it\u2019s an easy calculation for Trump: Why would he give up a $1.8 billion pot of money when he already has a lackey in place?<\/p>\n

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The president seems less willing to let go of $1.8 billion than his pick for attorney general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-atlantic-daily"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Is Choosing His Slush Fund Over Todd Blanche - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1726\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Is Choosing His Slush Fund Over Todd Blanche - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The president seems less willing to let go of $1.8 billion than his pick for attorney general.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1726\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-31T15:15:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1726#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1726\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"Trump Is Choosing His Slush Fund Over Todd Blanche\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T15:15:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1726\"},\"wordCount\":1204,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1726#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/0a4a0a0f9d91192e7f35e0c144b99a9b.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"The Atlantic Daily\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1726#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1726\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1726\",\"name\":\"Trump Is Choosing His Slush Fund Over Todd Blanche - 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