{"id":15211262,"date":"2026-07-15T21:16:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/us-senators-grill-todd-blanche-over-slush-fund-deal-and-epstein-files-at-senate-confirmation-hearing\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T21:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:34:08","slug":"us-senators-grill-todd-blanche-over-slush-fund-deal-and-epstein-files-at-senate-confirmation-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/us-senators-grill-todd-blanche-over-slush-fund-deal-and-epstein-files-at-senate-confirmation-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"US senators grill Todd Blanche over \u2018slush fund\u2019 deal and Epstein files at Senate confirmation hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears at his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill July 15, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Eric Lee\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche vowed Wednesday to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that if he is confirmed for the top post, the Justice Department would not oppose an effort in Congress to permanently ban a controversial \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund.<\/p>\n

Blanche also said he would consider any new information brought forward to the government about deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his ring of powerful associates. Multiple Epstein abuse survivors attended the Blanche confirmation hearing, some wearing t-shirts depicting the black bar redactions contained within the released files.<\/p>\n

Blanche, who previously worked as President Donald Trump\u2019s defense attorney, appeared before a tightly divided Senate Committee on the Judiciary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Republican-led panel is now split 11-10 after the\u00a0sudden death<\/a> Saturday of South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham. A large bouquet of white roses was placed before his empty seat Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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\"Acting<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is sworn in before testifying before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at the Hart Senate Office Building. (Photo by Ashley Murray\/States Newsroom)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lawmakers volleyed partisan accusations about the weaponization of the Department of Justice under presidents from both parties. Missouri\u2019s GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt called former Biden administration special counsel Jack Smith a \u201cdirt bag\u201d for his involvement in prosecuting Trump over allegations of colluding to overturn the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

But it was the plan for a nearly $1.8 billion \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund that brought tough questions for Blanche from two committee Republicans whose votes he needs to advance, Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The fund was established in exchange for Trump dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for the 2019 leak of his tax returns.<\/p>\n

With a raised voice, Tillis said he wants \u201cto stick a fork in this turkey of a 1776 fund,\u201d referring to the administration\u2019s choice of making the fund exactly $1.776 billion, adding the fund \u201cshould never be paid out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confirmation fight<\/h4>\n

The acting attorney general faces a possible rocky road to confirmation in the narrowly divided full Senate, assuming he is advanced by Judiciary, depending on when Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell is released from hospitalization. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have previously opposed some items on Trump\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

Blanche\u2019s confirmation will also be up to a handful of lame duck or retiring Republican senators whose future Senate careers were thwarted by Trump. They include Cornyn, a Texas Republican, and Bill Cassidy, R-La. Both recently lost primaries when Trump endorsed their opponents.<\/p>\n

Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who switched to private law, eventually starting his own firm and representing Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blanche defended Trump during a New York state jury trial on charges that the then-former president falsified business records when he paid adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump was found\u00a0guilty<\/a> on 34 felony charges in May 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blanche then served as the deputy at DOJ in the second Trump administration, confirmed on a party-line vote, before being\u00a0named acting AG<\/a> after the departure in early June of Pam Bondi.<\/p>\n

Trump and the Republican-led Senate have elevated the president\u2019s former personal lawyers to high-level positions in the U.S. judicial system during his second term in office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to appointing Blanche, the president nominated former defense attorney Emil Bove to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Senate, in a narrow 50-49 vote,\u00a0confirmed<\/a> Bove for the lifetime position in June 2025. Collins and Murkowski broke with Republicans to oppose Bove\u2019s confirmation.<\/p>\n

\u2018Anti-weaponization\u2019 fund<\/h4>\n

Blanche caught heat from both sides of the aisle during the hourslong hearing for signing off on the \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund for claimants he previously described as \u201cvictims of lawfare.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Critics quickly pounced on what they called a \u201cslush fund\u201d for its likely future payouts to pardoned Jan. 6, 2021 defendants, including those who assaulted police officers during the attack aimed at halting Congress\u2019 certification of Joe Biden\u2019s victory in the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

Blanche maintains the administration scrapped the fund.<\/p>\n

The acting attorney general sidestepped questions on whether he approved of Trump\u2019s blanket pardon of roughly 1,600 defendants implicated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Constitution gives the president the full power to pardon anybody for any reason,\u201d Blanche said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t question his decision?\u201d ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked.<\/p>\n

Blanche repeated his answer.<\/p>\n

Cornyn, displaying a blown-up copy of the IRS settlement deal, questioned Blanche on why the Department of Justice has not formally ended the fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cHas there been a written agreement of the parties to modify the settlement fund?\u201d asked Cornyn.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, the settlement fund is just not moving forward. There’s no modification. It’s just, it never started. No money went from the Treasury to any other account,\u201d Blanche replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m under oath today, and I\u2019ve said it\u2019s dead repeatedly,\u201d Blanche later said to Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat.<\/p>\n

Tillis said, \u201cI think that the courts are probably going to deal with it. But why should we waste the court capacity on this issue? If I could walk to the Senate floor with an agreed-to piece of text coming from the administration that just renders this whole thing dead?\u201d<\/p>\n

Blanche said the administration does \u201cnot object (to) that path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, defended the arrangement to drop Trump\u2019s IRS lawsuit as a \u201cpretty darn good deal\u201d that was settled \u201cwithout the president receiving a single penny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blanche\u00a0met<\/a> with angry Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill May 21 to sell the settlement fund as several protested it by holding out on the passage of a massive immigration funding bill to support Trump\u2019s mass deportation agenda for the remainder of his term.<\/p>\n

Blanche\u00a0told<\/a> House appropriators during a June 2 hearing that the administration would not move forward with the fund, but said he didn\u2019t know \u201cwhat that means to sign documents reversing\u201d the fund.<\/p>\n

Trump tax immunity<\/h4>\n

Trump\u2019s\u00a0settlement<\/a> to drop his IRS lawsuit also indefinitely absolves him and his two plaintiff sons, Don Jr. and Eric, as well as the private Trump Organization, from government prosecutions and tax enforcement.<\/p>\n

Democrats seized on the disparity. \u201cEveryone in this room, all of us on this side, we have to follow the tax laws of the United States, and if we don’t, we can be held responsible for it to the point of even criminal prosecution,\u201d Durbin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you decide that President Trump and his family and their businesses should be exempt from that same responsibility?\u201d the Illinois Democrat asked.<\/p>\n

Blanche said the agreement was \u201ctypical\u201d of settlements with the IRS, and that the agreement \u201cincluded release of any past audits. It does not give any protection to the president, his family, or his organizations for any taxes they file.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hard to explain to the American people that no one is above the law when that type of document was signed by you,\u201d Durbin replied.<\/p>\n

The Florida federal judge in the IRS case on Monday\u00a0slammed<\/a> Trump\u2019s settlement with his own administration as using the presidency to \u201cmanipulate\u201d the courts.<\/p>\n

Epstein files<\/h4>\n

As expected, senators questioned the Justice Department\u2019s handling of the legally mandated release of government files on Epstein, a process that critics and victims say fell short of full transparency and protection of victims\u2019 identities.<\/p>\n

Blanche defended the department\u2019s \u201cHerculean\u201d effort in reviewing millions of documents related to the government\u2019s federal investigation of Epstein\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were mistakes that were made, and so approximately 1% of the redactions had to be fixed after we released the Epstein files,\u201d Blanche said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever we learned that any victim’s name had been improperly not redacted, we immediately took the document down and fixed it as soon as we could. That doesn\u2019t excuse the mistakes of which I take responsibility, but it does mean that we tried to fix them,\u201d Blanche said.<\/p>\n

Durbin asked for a commitment that Blanche personally meet in the next month with 10 Epstein victims present at the hearing. Blanche said a sex trafficking prosecutor in his office is willing to meet any time, and that he is precluded from doing so because of ongoing litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will never not talk to victims. We will never not do everything we can to prosecute anybody that committed any crimes against any of these women. \u2026 Any victim, if they’re here today, I would encourage them or their lawyers to meet with the FBI,\u201d Blanche said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you ought to be in the room,\u201d Durbin said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said he was \u201cstunned\u201d at Blanche\u2019s refusal to meet personally with victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you did meet with Ghislaine Maxwell,\u201d Booker said, referring to Blanche\u2019s July 2025\u00a0meeting<\/a> with the convicted sex trafficker and Epstein co-conspirator shortly before she was\u00a0moved<\/a> to a prison with less security.<\/p>\n

Epstein survivors submitted six letters to the committee opposing Blanche’s nomination, and Durbin also submitted for the record a letter from 1,200 former career DOJ employees who served for both parties warning against confirming Blanche.<\/p>\n

When prompted by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to apologize to victims in the room, Blanche said his \u201cheart breaks for every victim of any sexual crime, whether involving Mr. Epstein or somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pivoting the subject to a campaign refrain of Republicans, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said she appreciated Blanche\u2019s \u201ccommitment\u201d to the Epstein victims and that she wished Democrats \u201chad that same level of conviction\u201d for \u201cfamilies of those who have lost loved ones at the hands of illegal aliens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, entered a handful of letters in support of Blanche\u2019s confirmation, including from law enforcement associations.<\/p>\n

Source: News \u2013 World \u2013 Phoenix \u2013 rss.app2 \u2192 manual entry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche vowed Wednesday to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that if he is confirmed for the top post, the Justice Department would not oppose an effort in Congress to permanently ban a controversial \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund.\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15211264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15211262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phoenix"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1.jpg",1024,699,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-300x205.jpg",300,205,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-620x423.jpg",620,423,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-768x524.jpg",768,524,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-940x642.jpg",940,642,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1.jpg",1024,699,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1.jpg",1024,699,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-998x665.jpg",998,665,true],"ignition_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-670x446.jpg",670,446,true],"ignition_item_lg":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1.jpg",1024,699,false],"ignition_article_media":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-510x510.jpg",510,510,true],"ignition_minicart_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-160x160.jpg",160,160,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/15211262-toddblanche2026-1024x699-1-300x300.jpg",300,300,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"Phoenix<\/a>","tag_info":"Phoenix","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15211262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15211262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15211262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15211263,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15211262\/revisions\/15211263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15211264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15211262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15211262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15211262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}