Thomas Tillis

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote Tuesday morning to advance acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination to head up the Department of Justice after two Republican senator holdouts struck a deal with Blanche to provide their support.

The vote comes after a Sunday evening deal between Blanche and Texas Sen. John Cornyn and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.

Both Cornyn and Tillis had refused to support Blanche until written assurances were provided about Trump's $10 billion IRS lawsuit settlement and the Department of Justice confirming it would terminate the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" to compensate political allies who believed they were unjustly prosecuted. Critics of the fund have expressed concern that rioters who attacked police at the Capitol on July 6, 2021, could be considered for payments.

After days of negotiations and a delayed vote last Thursday, Blanche provided those assurances in writing via a DOJ order on Sunday, which confirmed: "beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund."

The agency said since the settlement of Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, "No Members were appointed; no funds were transferred; no process for receiving claims was established; no claims were paid."

Blanche's order also limits the scope of another provision of the settlement providing immunity for Trump and family members from tax audits. The deal states that the tax audit immunity agreement applies only retroactively to claims opened at the time of the settlement and doesn't protect Trump from future tax filing examination.

We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon," the senators said.

Democrats have said Blanche's order doesn't "go far enough" to prevent the Trump administration from reviving the fund after his confirmation, and are demanding legislation to permanently ban it.

President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has defended the fund, telling reporters on Air Force One Sunday evening that the fund would compensate those targeted by the DOJ under the Biden Administration.

People were hurt so badly. 22 suicides. And they were destroyed. Their families were destroyed for doing things that honestly there's never been an attack on any group of people in this country in my opinion, maybe one. There's one group that was attacked violently like these people were attacked and this would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffered," Trump said.

Trump said a lot of people like the fund, and if Blanche is not approved, he'd put it back on the table.

"A lot of people like it. A lot of big supporters of Trump like it," Trump said.

Blanche previously faced criticism over claims of failing to maintain the DOJ's independence from the White House, the agency's pursuit of Trump's political opponents like James Comey and how the agency handled the Epstein files release. He is a former federal prosecutor and a member of Trump's defense team, who arrived at the DOJ in 2025 to serve as deputy attorney general.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.