Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday would not rule out allowing people convicted of assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot to seek payments from a new Department of Justice fund created to compensate people who claim they were politically targeted by the Biden administration.
Pressed at a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing, Blanche said, “anybody in this country can apply” to a new $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and said a commission would decide the rules for who can receive compensation.
“The commission will set the rules,” Blanche said when asked whether members of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers or others convicted of attacking Capitol Police officers could receive payments. “That’s not for me to set. That’s for the commissioners.”
Vice President JD Vance later Tuesday also declined to say that Jan. 6 defendants would be barred from receiving payments from the fund.
“I’m not committing to giving anybody money or committing to giving no one money,” Vance said in a White House press briefing after the hearing.
Vance said the administration was “not trying to give money to anybody who attacked a police officer.”
“We’re trying to give money — not give money, we’re trying to compensate people where the book was thrown at them, they were mistreated by the legal system,” Vance said.
Blanche also declined to commit that donors to President Donald Trump’s campaigns would be excluded from the fund, saying only that the payments would be governed by the settlement agreement.
When asked, “Will you commit that none of President Trump’s family will receive a direct payout from this fund?” Blanche replied, “Yes.”
The exchange came a day after the DOJ announced the fund as part of an agreement with Trump that included him dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
Democrats on the panel criticized Blanche for the fund.
“This all seems to be an obvious abuse of power by the Department of Justice, by the president,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told Blanche. “You’re his appointee, the IRS are his appointees, he’s the plaintiff, and the American people, I don’t think, are surprised that suddenly all this money is going to his friends or people that he has in his orbit.”
The DOJ on Monday said the fund will create a process for people who claim they were victims of “weaponization and lawfare” to seek financial compensation or formal apologies.
The hearing also touched on the resignation of Treasury Department General Counsel Brian Morrissey, which has been reported as lined to the fund’s creation, though CNBC has not confirmed the reason.
Asked whether it was a coincidence that Morrissey resigned the same day Treasury was required to certify the payments, Blanche said, “I don’t know if it’s a coincidence,” adding that he had not checked why Morrissey resigned.
A Treasury spokesperson told CNBC: “As general counsel, Brian Morrissey has served the United States Treasury with both honor and integrity. We wish him all the best in his next endeavors.”
Democrats and government watchdogs are denouncing the fund as a taxpayer-backed “slush fund” to reward Trump allies.
Blanche rejected that characterization Tuesday, pushing back on the claim that Trump had created a fund that would allow his appointees to decide which political allies receive taxpayer-funded payments.
“It’s not a slush fund,” Blanche said. “It’s been done many times.”
The Justice Department has not yet released detailed eligibility rules for the fund, which will be overseen by a five-member commission appointed by the attorney general.
