Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said President Trump cannot collect any of the money from the new $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund — but Hunter Biden, son of the former president, could.
Mr. Blanche said Mr. Trump and his sons have signed away their rights to any payment, though they will get an apology from the government for the leak of their secret tax information.
But beyond that limit, there are no restrictions on who else might apply.
“Whether you’re Hunter Biden or whether you’re another individual who believed they were a victim of weaponization, they can all apply,” he said Tuesday.
He also said that could include people convicted — and later pardoned by Mr. Trump — for their behavior during the intrusion into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, though he said he shared concerns of Democrats worried about the possibility.
Mr. Blanche said the actual payouts will be decided on a case-by-case basis by a five-member board, and applying doesn’t automatically mean someone gets money.
The attorney general will appoint the members, though one of the appointments must be made after consultation with Congress.
The fund, announced Monday and seeded with exactly $1.776 billion, has sparked a furor from Democrats who called it a “slush fund,” funneling taxpayers’ money to the president and his allies.
Mr. Blanche, a former personal lawyer for Mr. Trump, said the president “isn’t taking a dime.”
But he said the fact that Democrats believed an anti-weaponization effort would benefit the president and his confidantes was telling.
“It proves the point that President Trump has been saying for a very long time, which happens to be true, which is for the first time in our nation’s history you had an administration seek to destroy the previous administration,” the acting Justice Department chief told senators.
He said that included calling the president’s gardener to testify to a grand jury. It also included the Justice Department sneaking a peek at the phone records of some members of Congress.
Mr. Blanch said this type of fund has antecedents, but acknowledged it was unprecedented.
He said that was the result of the unprecedented efforts made by the previous administration, and he said the fund is one way to try to prevent a repeat in future administrations.
“This legal system was not set up to compensate for what the Democrats and Biden and what [former Attorney General Merrick] Garland did for four years,” Mr. Blanche said.
The acting DOJ chief said he will get a quarterly report on the fund’s activities and he will make that public, though some of the information about specific claimants may have to be withheld under privacy laws.
The fund was established as part of the settlement with Mr. Trump to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, filed to compensate him for a contractor who accessed and then leaked the president’s tax information, along with the tax information of hundreds of thousands of others.
Democrats demanded that Mr. Blanche find some outside party to sign off on the fund. In particular, they wanted a federal judge who had been overseeing the case to give it a look.
But the judge dismissed the case late Monday, and Mr. Blanche said there is no other outside authority to turn to.
That left Democrats fuming, saying taxpayers were being jilted.
“President Trump is literally using their tax dollars to set up a slush fund to enrich his own friends,” said Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat.
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