AP News53%
Blanche confronts skeptical questioning of fund, tax deal for Trump at Senate confirmation hearing 65%
By ERIC TUCKER35% ALANNA DURKIN RICHER47%
7/15/2026, 4:11:43 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Self-Serving Bias, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 50.7% saturation with 343 hits. Analysis detected 1,320 faulty-reasoning hits from 677 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 59.4% and a BS Rank of 65% (7,674 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 64.90% of the article peer group.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confronted skeptical questions at a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday about the creation of a fund to compensate President Donald Trump’s allies and a tax immunity deal for the president as he aimed to lock down the Republican support needed to advance his nomination.
Blanche insisted that the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which was scrapped after fierce bipartisan backlash, was “not moving forward.”
But lawmakers, including Republican Sen.
John Cornyn, conveyed concerns that the Trump administration has yet to commit in writing that the fund is dead and could therefore conceivably be resurrected.
“Just to be clear, the president of the United States, who’s a plaintiff in this lawsuit, has not agreed in writing to delete the weaponization fund and there’s no guarantee that he or one of the other plaintiffs” won’t raise the issue in the future, Cornyn asked.
Blanche replied that Trump has no power over the fund, which was to have been administered by the Justice Department but was never launched.
Cornyn’s questions were closely watched since Blanche requires the backing of each Republican on the panel, and the Texas senator has not committed his support.
Tillis, meanwhile, indicated during questioning that he is likely to support Blanche, even as he said he wanted “to stick a fork in this turkey of a 1776 fund.”
The death of South Carolina Republican Sen.
Lindsey Graham, who was a member of the committee, left 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats on the panel.
With Democrats united in solidarity against Blanche, a no-vote by even a single Republican on the panel would scuttle Blanche’s nomination.
“You’re in charge of a Department of Justice I don’t recognize, prosecuting the president’s political enemies, firing rank and file prosecutors and FBI agents,” Democratic Sen.
Chris Coons of Delaware told Blanche.
“These are some actions that in your previous confirmation hearing before us, you said you would not take.”
Blanche, for his part, pointed to investigations into Trump during the Biden administration to argue that he had inherited a politicized Justice Department.
“In recent years, we watched the Justice Department turned against many of you and a former president, and it damaged the public’s faith in justice,” Blanche argued.
“We are fixing that.”
Blanche was also pressed on the department’s staggered release of the Epstein files, a process beset by problems, including redaction errors that left exposed nude photos showing the faces of potential victims.
During a podcast interview with Joe Rogan released Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance said the administration “absolutely” mishandled the communications surrounding the files, including when then-Attorney General Pam Bondi distributed binders of Epstein documents at the White House to far-right influencers that contained already-public material.
Blanche acknowledged that “mistakes were made” in the release process but nonetheless defended the work.
“I want to make sure that the American people know that this administration, when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, has been more transparent than any administration,” he said.
The Justice Department only released additional files after Trump bowed to bipartisan pressure to sign a law forcing the department to do so.
A former federal prosecutor and key member of Trump’s defense team as the Republican battled four indictments, Blanche arrived at the Justice Department last year as deputy attorney general.
At one point, under friendly questioning from Republican Sen.
John Kennedy about whether he and Trump are friends, Blanche responded: “I’m his lawyer,” before quickly correcting himself to say he “was his lawyer.”
He ascended to the top job in April after Trump ousted Bondi, who had frustrated the White House by struggling to bring successful cases against Trump’s political opponents.
Blanche has tried to satisfy Trump in that regard, including with an indictment of ex-FBI Director James Comey, another Trump adversary, on charges of threatening the 47th president by posting a social media photograph of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47.”
Comey has said the numbers were not a call to violence.
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