WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump drew sharp rebukes from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill after he left the door open to taxpayer payouts for rioters who assaulted police officers during the Jan. 6 attack in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” over the weekend.
Trump’s planned “anti-weaponization” fund, which appears to be on pause amid bipartisan backlash, “should be for people who have had their constitutional rights violated, not who violated other people’s constitutional rights,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Monday. “If you’ve been convicted of assault on a cop ... doesn’t seem to me like people who are victims.”
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary Committee, told NBC News he plans to introduce legislation this week to bar anyone convicted of offenses related to the attack on Jan. 6, 2021, or interfering in recent presidential elections from receiving taxpayer-funded federal payouts related to the Capitol riot.
“The attorney general claims that he is not going to go forward with a slush fund for the Jan. 6 criminals, but the president still wants to see them receive money,” Schiff said in an interview in the Capitol. “I want to make sure they can’t use some other mechanism to pay these people off, so that is the necessity of the bill.”
Trump says anti-weaponization fund is 'a great idea'
“The attorney general’s word is not good enough under any circumstance,” Schiff added.
The attorney general in question is Todd Blanche, who has served in an acting capacity for the past two months and whom Trump officially nominated to the post Monday. Blanche, who previously was Trump’s personal attorney, recently promised lawmakers that the controversial $1.8 billion Justice Department “anti-weaponization” fund was dead following a GOP revolt against the fund that brought Trump’s agenda to a screeching halt.
A GOP leadership aide noted that Blanche was under oath last week when he testified that the fund was dead and said Republicans are taking him at his word.
But Trump reopened the issue Sunday, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that rioters who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 were unfairly targeted by prosecutors and deserved compensation and that the fund was a “great idea.” Asked by Welker whether he would rule out payouts for those convicted of assaulting police that day, Trump declined.
“I wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I have to see it,” Trump said, pivoting to suggest, without evidence, that the FBI set rioters up and that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The “anti-weaponization” fund or other possible payouts for convicted Jan. 6 rioters are sure to come up during what’s expected to be a bruising Senate confirmation process for Blanche to become attorney general.
“I need to know if Todd Blanche is an attorney general who used to be the president’s personal attorney, or is he the president’s personal attorney who just happens to be attorney general,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who has more freely broken with Trump since he lost his primary last month to a Trump-backed opponent. “That kind of summarizes my concerns and what I’ll be looking for, and I need to be convinced of that.”
Blanche will need the support of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and all but three in the full Senate to be confirmed to lead the Justice Department if all Democrats oppose him.
Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, another GOP senator whom Trump successfully worked to defeat in his primary, could give Blanche trouble in his confirmation process.
“I have a lot of questions. You know, being AG is a unique job, because you’re not the president’s lawyer, you’re the chief legal officer for the United States, but you’re also a member of the president’s Cabinet, which means you can be fired anytime,” Cornyn said. “So it’s a really, maybe the hardest balancing act in the Cabinet.
“I’m interested in hearing how he would approach the job, because he was President Trump’s lawyer at one time, but if he’s AG, he won’t be the president’s lawyer,” Cornyn said.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said he takes at face value Blanche’s promise that the “anti-weaponization” fund isn’t coming back.
“I think the attorney general is a man of his word, and I’m very comfortable with what he told us, that there would not be an anti-weaponization fund,” Kennedy said in an interview.
Asked about Trump’s continuing to talk about the fund, Kennedy replied, “It’s the president’s prerogative — it’s a free country.”
Across the Capitol, moderate Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., said there is no support in Congress for the fund or payouts to people who committed crimes against police.
“The concern my constituents and I have is that money possibly going to folks who hit cops,” LaLota said. “Especially when there is video evidence, they shouldn’t get a dime from our government.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., whose state is home to many Capitol Police officers and others who work in the complex, said Trump’s decision to constantly revive the idea of the fund is “foolish” and making things harder for his GOP allies on the Hill.
“You can tell Dems aren’t going to like it, of course, but you can tell how uncomfortable it makes Republicans that they have to vote on it. We’ll have to vote on it more,” Kaine said. “It’s really unpopular out in the field, and that’s making life harder for Republicans to have to answer these questions.
“Why would you keep raising this when it is clearly kind of an albatross issue for your own team?” he asked, noting the midterm elections coming up in November. “And I can’t think of another answer other than he doesn’t really care” about Republicans on the ballot.
