McConnell Slams DOJ's $1.8B 'Lawfare' Fund After Blanche Meeting

Sen. Mitch McConnell on Thursday blasted Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for the Department of Justice's new controversial $1.8 billion "lawfare" fund hours after Blanche met with Republican senators in an effort to assuage their concerns about it.

"So the nation's top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong – Take your pick," McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement obtained by MS NOW.

McConnell is the former Senate majority leader.

Blanche, earlier in the day, met with GOP senators as pushback grows in Congress over the idea of paying out settlements to people who attacked police during the U.S. Capitol riot in 2021.

The DOJ created the fund as part of a settlement of an unrelated $10 billion lawsuit by President Donald Trump against the Internal Revenue Service.

The fund would purportedly compensate those who allege they were victims of prosecutorial overreach or worse by the DOJ during the Biden administration, which could include hundreds of people convicted or charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

After the meeting, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told CNBC that Blanche had told lawmakers at the meeting that fund money is "not going toward people who attack policemen and people of authority."

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., in an interview with Spectrum News, called the fund "stupid on stilts."

"It will invariably put us in a position where your taxpayer dollars and my taxpayers' dollars could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer, admitted their guilt, got convicted, got pardoned, and now we're gonna pay them for that?" Tillis said.

"That's absurd," he added. "The American people are going to reject this out of hand."

Blanche's meeting with GOP senators came a day after Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., introduced a bill that would bar federal money from being used for the DOJ's "Anti-Weaponization Fund," and after two police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 filed a lawsuit seeking to have the fund declared illegal.

Democrats in Congress have called the fund a corrupt "slush fund."

On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced legislation that would slap a 100% tax on any payments from the fund.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Thursday, "Right now we want to hear the attorney general about his view of this and what they intend to do with it."

"But obviously, our members have very legitimate questions about it," Thune said, adding that his caucus has had conversations about "how we might make sure that it's fenced in appropriately."

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Blanche said commissioners appointed to administer the fund will be responsible for considering a claimant's conduct in applications for compensation.

"One of the factors the commissioners have to consider is what the claimant did — the claimant's conduct," said Blanche. "The claimant would have to say, 'I assaulted a cop, and I want money.'"

"Whether the commissioners will give that person money – that claimant – it's up to them," the attorney general said. "But that's one of the factors they have to consider."

Blanche will appoint all five commissioners for the fund.

Blanche, who is Trump's former criminal defense attorney, also said the president "does not stand for assaulting law enforcement."

Blanche's interview came after several Senate Republicans questioned the rationale for the fund.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told MS NOW he did not see "any legal precedent" for the fund.

"People are concerned about making their own ends meet, not about putting a slush fund together without a legal precedent," Cassidy said.

Thune himself had said he was "not a big fan" of the idea of the fund, according to MS NOW.

"I don't see a purpose for that."

Wyden, in a statement on Thursday, said, "The announcement of this slush fund was staggeringly corrupt even by Trump's bottom-dwelling standards."