The Senate is sprinting into its final week before recess with high-stakes battles over legislation and nominations, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche just removed the main obstacle that a pair of senators were using to block his confirmation by formally rescinding the order that created the controversial fund.
The Senate faces a packed docket this week, including the fate of the SAVE America Act and the confirmation of Todd Blanche as the next attorney general. Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis have been vocal in their objections, framing their stall as oversight concerns about a DOJ-created fund tied to IRS settlements.
Cornyn and Tillis focused their opposition on the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund, a DOJ mechanism tied to May IRS settlements intended to provide relief to people who claim they were wrongfully targeted. Their complaint centered on the scope and oversight of roughly $1.8 billion in assets connected to that settlement, which they argued lacked adequate congressional supervision.
Blanche repeatedly told senators and courts that the fund was not actively being distributed, but those reassurances did not thaw the blockade he faced in the Senate. For weeks the two senators used the fund as leverage, delaying a floor vote and turning the confirmation into a fight over process rather than qualifications.
On Sunday evening Blanche took decisive action and issued an order that rescinded the May 18, 2026 directive that had created the fund, a move that strips Cornyn and Tillis of their principal justification for continuing to hold up his nomination. The rescission makes clear what Blanche and the Justice Department had been asserting: the fund would not move forward in practice and the earlier order would no longer stand.
My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions. We have enjoyed good faith discussions, and as a result issue the following order and update with regard to the May IRS settlement. The Department always welcomes and appreciates productive engagement with all members of Congress.
The Justice Department reiterated the change, stating that although the Acting Attorney General had regularly represented to courts and lawmakers that the Fund was not moving forward, today’s order “officially rescinds the May 18, 2026 Order.” That formal step undercuts the narrative that the administration was quietly advancing a massive relief vehicle without congressional input.
Cornyn’s office responded by saying the senator reached an agreement with the Department that the fund would be permanently terminated in a binding written document and that the settlement’s scope would be limited to the plaintiffs and the IRS. That language aims to lock down limits on any future interpretation of the settlement and to reassure skeptical colleagues on the committee.
https://x.com/DAGToddBlanche/status/2084114427813437897
With the principal objection removed, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley scheduled a committee vote on Blanche’s nomination for Tuesday at 9 AM EDT. The committee vote is a critical procedural step that now seems more likely to clear Blanche for an eventual floor consideration, assuming no new objections appear.
Politically this episode shows how a pair of senators can leverage procedural concerns to exert outsized influence over nominations, forcing concessions or formal revisions even when the underlying action is stalled in practice. From a Republican perspective the move to demand binding, written limits is defensible oversight, but using a technical or temporary mechanism to forestall a qualified nominee crosses into obstruction.
Blanche’s decision to rescind the order was a practical response to political reality: it removed the most visible pretext for delay while preserving core DOJ positions about the settlement and the scope of relief. That trade-off keeps the focus where it should be—on the nominee’s fitness and the Department’s commitments—rather than on an administratively created vehicle that generated political heat.
The timing matters. With the Senate on the clock before recess, both parties want to clear fights that could derail other priorities, and a stalled attorney general confirmation is exactly the sort of problem leaders want resolved quickly. Blanche’s step simplifies negotiations and gives GOP senators who worried about runaway settlements the concrete assurances they asked for.
What happens next depends on whether Cornyn, Tillis, and other holdouts accept the rescission and agreed language as sufficient, or whether they press new demands. For now the immediate impasse over the Anti-Weaponization Fund appears defused, and Blanche’s path through the Judiciary Committee has been reopened on Tuesday at 9 AM EDT.
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