Late Sunday night, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche posted a signed order to X rescinding the Anti-Weaponization Fund. The death of the Trump slush fund, that is, the fund personally created by Blanche earlier this year as part of a deal to drop Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, is something Blanche has repeatedly said, but (until last night) wouldn’t write down. But the written commitment is what Senators Cornyn and Tillis had been demanding for weeks while Blanche insisted, over and over, that words said out loud were plenty sufficient and what on earth would be the purpose of writing anything down. Now that *something* is on paper, the Senate Judiciary Committee has rescheduled its vote on his confirmation for Tuesday. He’ll almost certainly get through.
But I wouldn’t get too excited about the end of the slush fund.
The order reads, “The Attorney General’s May 18, 2026 Order establishing the Anti-Weaponization Fund (‘Fund’) is rescinded and shall have no force or effect.” A second document purports to affirm the limits of Trump’s tax audit immunity, narrowing it to the original plaintiffs. Cornyn and Tillis declared themselves satisfied. “We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” they said in a joint statement, adding they “look forward to voting to advance his nomination.”
Learning After Law School
Once you’ve got your law degree, how do you keep your professional skills up to date? Share your perspective in this brief survey, and you may be eligible to win a $250 gift card.
This is not AT ALL some enforceable guarantee that the American people will be protected from another slush fund dressed in a trench coat. There’s the, ahem, shaky legal ground of a unilateral modification to a settlement agreement. Plus an AG order rescinding a previous AG order can be superseded by — wait for it — another AG order! As Republican lawyer Mike Howell admitted, “Can be undone after Tuesday.” The slush fund is dead, long live the slush fund.
And then there’s what we actually know — Trump wants the fund back. He said so Saturday morning. Blanche wants whatever Trump wants, something he’s made abundantly clear for the last 18 months. This order is nothing more than a smokescreen, designed to get Blanche through the confirmation process. Nothing more. Pretending it is real is an insidious form of gullible that allows terrible abuses to occur.
Oh, and while we’re establishing that rumors of fund’s death are greatly exaggerated: Jezebel reported last week that anti-abortion extremist Paul Vaughn, one of 23 Trump pardoned activists convicted under the FACE Act for blocking access to reproductive health clinics, received a $1 million payout from the DOJ. “This unlawful seven-figure payout to an anti-abortion extremist is all the proof the Senate should need that the so-called anti-weaponization slush fund is far from dead,” the National Women’s Law Center told Jezebel. The fund doesn’t even need to formally exist to do its work.
All this is a familiar page of the Trump 2.0 confirmation playbook. Senator Bill Cassidy conditioned his support for RFK Jr.’s confirmation on specific promises about vaccines, promises Kennedy proceeded to break almost immediately after being confirmed, firing the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, cutting vaccine funding, and adding baseless content to the CDC website casting doubt on vaccine safety. Cassidy has declined to say whether Kennedy broke his commitments. Now Cassidy is watching Cornyn and Tillis extract written commitments from Blanche on the slush fund, and one imagines he has some institutional knowledge about how this plays out. But the GOP of 2026 has about as much spine as a wet noodle. When CBS News asked Cassidy last week whether he’d vote for Blanche today, his answer was: “I’m not going to answer that because I’m still in the information gathering stage.”
AI Is Reshaping Legal Practice—But Tools Aren’t The Real Differentiator.
Explore the mindset, cultural shifts, and training strategies that define the AI‑savvy lawyer, revealing why human judgment, standardized competence, and integrated learning—not technology alone—will shape the future of the profession.
Todd Blanche will be confirmed as Attorney General of the United States. He will almost certainly still be sycophantic about it. And when the slush fund comes back — in some form, under some name, in some creative reinterpretation of what “rescinded” means — I, for one, will nod and say: yes, of course it did.
Earlier: Trump: I’ll Pull Blanche’s Nomination And Resubmit After Cornyn And Tillis Are Gone. Cornyn: Cool, Roll The Dice.
Todd Blanche’s Confirmation Vote Gets Postponed Because He Just Won’t Put His Promises In Writing
Blanche Pantsed By Trump Rants
Todd Blanche’s Confirmation Is Being Held Up By Todd Blanche
The DOJ’s $1.8 Billion Slush Fund Has A Child Molester Problem
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1