Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and a handful of women’s rights and reproductive freedom groups are sounding the alarm over recent reporting that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has vowed to use the Justice Department to roll back abortion access nationwide — a break with both President Trump’s own campaign promises that places him much further out on a limb on abortion than other Trump admin officials have been willing to go.

Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, promises Americans that he has no intention of going forward with a $1.8 billion slush fund designed to funnel money out of the Treasury and into the pockets of right-wing attorneys. The outcry that followed the Justice Department’s May 19 announcement of the fund, which would pay the legal bills of political allies charged with crimes ranging from fraud to storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, was deafening. In addition to blowback from many congressional Republicans, a federal judge halted the administration’s disbursement of the money, which was created as part of Trump’s agreement with the federal government stemming from his lawsuit  for the leak of his tax returns. Blanche, in his role as acting attorney general, claimed the administration would voluntarily walk away from using the money.

Now, months later, he has resolutely avoided putting this promise in writing, and his failure to formally give up the slush fund is putting at risk his Senate confirmation to permanently head the Justice Department.

The reason behind Blanche’s refusal is obvious: He and Trump want to keep the option to re-open the fund at a later date, along with the ability to write fat checks, paid for with taxpayer money, to the lawyers working on behalf of unsavory right-wing figures.

Blanche knows that world quite well; he has become personally wealthy doing exactly this kind of work. Before taking his job at the Justice Department, first as Pam Bondi’s deputy attorney general, and then as her replacement, Blanche was making millions representing Trump in everything from a civil rape case to criminal fraud. Blanche also knows how such funds pay for that type of work. According to ABC News, between March 2023 and December 2024, his law firm was paid almost $10 million, not by Trump personally, but by a political action committee that was supposed to be funding Republican campaigns. 

Blanche’s nomination is imperiled by his refusal to let go of the chance to flood the coffers of right-wing lawyers defending shady characters like his former client and current boss. Thursday’s vote to approve his nomination by the Senate Judiciary Committee was delayed. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex. and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., both who are leaving the Senate at the end of the year, are threatening to vote no unless Blanche formally commits to rolling back the deal that created this slush fund and also gave Trump and his family eternal immunity from IRS audits.

“This is not popular,” Tillis told the New York Times. “It is killing some of our candidates because they can’t explain it. And now it looks like they weren’t being honest when they said it was inoperative.”

It’s not just a “looks like” issue. Anyone who said the fund was inoperative because of Blanche’s informal say-so is either ignorant or lying. As the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote in June, Blanche and Trump remain committed to funding a “pipeline of taxpayer-funded payouts to political allies and convicted criminals.” Even the conservative National Review’s Andrew McCarthy agrees, writing on Wednesday that “Blanche has resisted memorializing in writing his claim that the fund is kaput, because President Trump wants the fund.”

The White House has already been funneling taxpayer funds to these bad actors through a slightly different but related process. As the Washington Post reported in June, the Justice Department has paid out millions to Trump allies who claim victimization because they were investigated or even convicted of crimes. The family of Ashli Babbitt got a nearly $5 million check over baseless claims that her shooting death during the Jan. 6 riot was unwarranted, even though video footage clearly showed her climbing through a window in an apparent attempt to chase down congressional members and staff fleeing in fear. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported on a seven-figure check written to Paul Vaughn, who was convicted of a federal crime in 2024 for conspiring to blockade an abortion clinic before being pardoned by Trump last year. 

Vaughn’s legal representation by the Thomas More Society is a reminder of who really benefits if Blanche and Trump succeed in reviving the fund after the midterm elections: right-wing lawyers, who started licking their lips within moments of the Justice Department’s announcement. 

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“Everybody’s very excited about it,” Mark McCloskey, a lawyer representing Jan. 6 defendants, told the Washington Post. Even though his clients have been pardoned by Trump, he has been lobbying for the fund, hoping to see a big payday by claiming wrongful prosecution. Such a claim would be all but certain to fall apart in a court of law. But as the existing track record shows, the goal is to get the Justice Department to “settle” these claims by writing checks to people who otherwise wouldn’t see a dime. Clients would get money, but so would the lawyers — especially those who, like McCloskey, would get a cut of check after check. 

At this point, it’s unclear if Blanche would be able to personally benefit from various schemes to pay off Trump’s political allies with government money. He could return to private practice and start taking on those kinds of clients after leaving the Justice Department. By then, though, it’s possible a Democrat will be in the White House again, and will have either shut down the fund or started blocking payments for phony claims made by right-wing operatives. But, as someone who was on a similar gravy train not that long ago, Blanche knows full well how rich his fellow right-wing lawyers could get from this. 

And it’s not just private practice lawyers, either. Groups like the Thomas More Society, Alliance Defending Freedom and other far-right legal nonprofits need funding for their legal crusades, as seen by the lawsuit that overturned Roe v. Wade, or the ongoing cases meant to curtail voting rights or LGBTQ+ equality. Taking on right-wing clients with baseless claims of victimization could be an easy way to get money, which could then be used to fund cases attacking reproductive rights or religious freedom. 

That Cornyn and Tillis are taking this stand is surprising. The pair have a long history of supporting the right-wing legal organizations that could find themselves flush with slush money. As Tillis’s comments about the midterm campaigns show, it may not be anything deeper than a sense that this is politically toxic. Trump’s consideration of withdrawing Blanche’s nomination would be nothing more than a pause until after the midterm elections, when he is banking on new Republican senators to replace Cornyn and Tillis — and put his payola scheme back into action.

It may not even come to that. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., was assuring reporters that Blanche’s nomination would be back as soon as next week, after “a resolution on the issues that Senators Cornyn and Tillis raised.” Thune’s comments suggest that as long as Trump does a slightly better job at deflecting attention from the fund, the two senators can claim victory and give Blanche their support. 

Or perhaps this will really be the moment that Republicans, two of them at least, stand up to Trump for real, instead of just doing so as quickly-dispatched political theater. If so, it’s a hopeful sign that Republicans can read a poll and see his corruption is starting to wear thin, especially for a public struggling to make ends meet while the president enriches himself and his cronies. 

The post The real reason Todd Blanche won’t drop Trump’s slush fund appeared first on Salon.com.

Good morning. It was great to meet all of you who came out to our event in New York last night with Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket.

Trump Tries to Raise the Stakes on SAVE Again

President Donald Trump made a show yesterday afternoon of preparing to throw Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to the wolves out of frustration that the SAVE Act is not yet on track to pass in any form. The latest push is to jam parts of the bill through using budget reconciliation, which requires 51 instead of 60 votes, though Trump also continues to agitate for Thune to nuke the filibuster and pass the full voter suppression package.

Asked whether Thune is the right person to lead the Senate, Trump said, “We will find out, and I will let you know.”

“All right. Well, that’s nice of him, I guess,” Thune told Punchbowl. “I don’t know — what do you say on that? That’s a decision that’s made by my colleagues.”

Throughout Trump’s SAVE Act pressure campaign on his Senate allies, he has repeatedly made demands that misunderstand the reality of how the Senate functions, and how bills become law. He has seemed amenable to passing what everyone has taken to calling the “SAVE Act” through budget reconciliation, even though a SAVE Act done through reconciliation, while bad, would likely be without the nationwide voter-ID and proof-of-citizenship mandates that are core to what the SAVE Act is. It is unclear whether Trump realizes this. He has refused to sign a popular housing bill, though without his signature it simply became law after 10 days; in doing so, the president achieved nothing on the SAVE Act while robbing himself of an opportunity to claim a victory on “affordability.” His demands for the SAVE Act to be attached to various funding bills dramatically complicated his allies’ attempts to fund ICE over Democratic opposition in the spring, and look sure to complicate government funding fights this fall.

When we see legislators take bills hostage, an increasingly common phenomenon since the Obama era that has often led to government shutdowns, the more effective efforts involve lawmakers carefully finding legislation where they have maximal leverage. Trump hasn’t done this — perhaps he doesn’t have the attention to detail to do so — and is as a result unable to truly achieve anything beyond making life considerably more frustrating for his fellow elected Republicans.

That’s the case this week, too. Thune is, of course, right that, in the end, Trump does not select the majority leader, though he may wish he did. Other senators do. Trump can’t oust Thune. But he can elevate him as a target at which his activist base should direct their hate.

Trump’s Blanche Nomination Gets Stuck

John Cornyn (R-TX) has caused a vote to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, scheduled for today, to be postponed.

• Yesterday, Cornyn said he was canceling a meeting with Blanche, explaining that he wanted to see a written modification to the settlement between Trump and the IRS that would have created the “anti-weaponization” slush fund.
• The DOJ told us it sent a “written proposal to Senator Cornyn’s staff.” Cornyn told reporters, “I haven’t seen a single piece of writing that is responsive to what I’ve requested.”
• The vote could move forward whenever Cornyn gives the green light, though at this point that might not happen with enough time to confirm him before the Senate takes a month-long recess, beginning at the end of next week.
• The episode is more significant as a (perhaps short-lived) display of GOP Senate resistance to Trump than as an actual check on the DOJ: Even if Blanche isn’t confirmed, he can remain in the role as acting attorney general. And whatever the fate of the slush fund, settlements for right-wing activists continue, with the DOJ agreeing this week to pay more than a million dollars to an anti-abortion activist who was convicted in 2024 of conspiring to prevent access to a clinic, the New York Times reports.

Tabs

• Republicans may not end up following Trump’s endorsement and picking Darline Graham Nordone to fill her brother’s seat, the Washington Post writes. The Downballot gives a rundown of the many, many other candidates in the race, including some figures we’ve covered quite a bit over the years.
• Kash Patel has lost a defamation suit against an internet poster who called him a “googly-eyed Kremlin bitch” and a “chud,” the New Republic reports. U.S. District Court Judge for the district of Nevada Andrew P. Gordon found he did not have jurisdiction.

Man of the Hour

It’s Alex Jones, the onetime stalwart ally of President Trump who has now turned to demanding his impeachment over the Iran war to attract attention (which, admittedly, he is succeeding in doing). I used a gas station bathroom off I-95 the other day where someone had written “Alex Jones is right” on the soap dispenser — so make of that what you will.

Are We at War?

You bet.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation is stalled.

A meeting that was scheduled to take place between Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Blanche was cancelled abruptly Wednesday morning — just a day before the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote to move Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General out of committee. 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters on Tuesday that there’s a chance the confirmation vote to move Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination out of committee may be postponed — or it may not.

Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise!

Three prominent 2020 election deniers won GOP primary elections in Arizona for secretary of state, governor and attorney general. It’s concerning news for the future of election administration in such a crucial state.

Arizona GOP state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who is a known election denier, won the Republican primary for secretary of state this week. Kolodin is a member of the right-wing Arizona Freedom Caucus and in 2023 was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona for his participation in the so-called “Kraken” lawsuits, challenging the results of the 2020 election. 

The fact that an election denier could be in charge of running elections in a state that has been ground zero for election conspiracy theories since 2020, is, of course, a harrowing prospect. 

Kolodin will face off against Democratic incumbent Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in November. 

Staunch MAGA ally Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) won the GOP nomination for Arizona governor this week too, and will now face off against Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs in November. 

Biggs, who is the former chair of the Freedom Caucus, has a rich election denial history. He has consistently supported and repeated Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was subpoenaed by the House January 6 select committee in May of 2022 as part of its investigation into the events leading up to the attack and efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. 

On January 6, 2021, Biggs objected to the counting of electoral votes in Arizona, as well as five other Biden-won states that were all subject to election misinformation in the aftermath of 2020. 

“I object to counting the votes of Arizona electors because the federal courts went around the legislatively constructed mechanism for choosing Arizona’s presidential electors allowing tens of thousands of voters to unlawfully cast votes,” Biggs wrote in a 2021 press release.

Hobbs had this to say about Biggs in a post on X this week: “Andy Biggs has spent his career selling out Arizona families for billionaires, special interests, and even convicted sex offenders.The more Arizonans learn about Biggs, the more they’ll realize he’s one big problem they can’t afford.”

Lastly, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen secured the GOP nomination for attorney general this week. Earlier this month, Petersen complied with a federal grand jury subpoena — part of the administration’s ongoing investigation into non-existent fraud in the 2020 election. Petersen handed over documents to the FBI related to a 2021 scam of an election audit in Maricopa County that found no traces of election fraud.

As always, there is lots more to catch up on. Let’s dig in. 

Trump Admin Escalates Threats of Criminal Charges Against Election Administrators

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin continues to threaten state election officials with criminal persecution over non-citizen voting, in yet another attempt by the Trump administration to exert control over elections and elevate Trump’s conspiracy theories about non-citizens voting en masse for Democrats, a repeatedly debunked myth. 

Earlier this month, the DOJ sent election officials in all 50 states letters threatening criminal prosecution if non-citizens are found on voter rolls.

On Friday, during a press conference, Mullin doubled down on these threats, demanding that states run their voter rolls through a federal database — or risk losing federal election-related funding and/or face possible criminal persecution. 

“We’re saying that the machines had to be secure, and that your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed,” Mullin said on Friday. 

“We need to make sure that individuals that are legally able to vote are voting,” he continued. “If you’re illegal and attempted to vote, or you tried to vote illegally for someone else, we will find you and we will charge you.”

Mullin is insisting that states participate in the Federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, a database typically used for verifying the citizenship and immigration status of individuals applying for certain governmental benefits. It’s been co-opted by the Trump administration to purge alleged non-citizens from voter rolls. There is evidence, however, that this tool has been incorrectly flagging eligible citizens to be booted from the voter rolls. 

“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said.

This comes as the use of the database for the Trump administration’s aims has been challenged in court. The use of the SAVE system to purge voters from the rolls was blocked by a federal judge last month.

A Remarkable 16 Losses for the DOJ’s Campaign to Seize State Voter Data 

The DOJ has officially earned its 16th loss (with an impressive zero wins) in the administration’s ongoing and failing campaign to seize sensitive voter roll data from the states. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Kari Dooley, a Trump-appointee, dismissed the DOJ’s case against Connecticut, ruling that the state’s voter data is not something the federal government is entitled to. 

For many long (and embarrassing) months, the DOJ has been desperately trying to force at least 44 states and Washington, D.C. to give the department access to unredacted voter roll data, which includes private information like Social Security numbers and drivers license numbers, to the federal government.

The DOJ has been relying on provisions in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) to argue that the federal government is entitled to this type of personal identifying information. 

So far, not a single judge has agreed. 

“…the Court concludes that the Connecticut SVRL is not a record that falls within the scope of Title III, and is therefore not subject to the preservation and production requirements contemplated therein,” Dooley wrote in her order on Friday.

“This lawsuit was an illegal attempt to disenfranchise Connecticut voters and today, the court shut it down,” Connecticut’s Democratic Attorney General William Tong said in a statement on Friday. “The Constitution is clear: the President does not control our elections and has no right to manipulate Connecticut voter rolls. Connecticut follows federal law and takes its obligations under federal law very seriously. We will not be bullied into handing over sensitive voter information just because Trump demands it.”

In Other Election News

New York Times: How the G.O.P. Turned Olive Garden Into a Voter ID Talking Point

ABC News: State officials preparing if the federal government tries interfering with how they run elections

Democracy Docket: Georgia Secretary of State’s office responds to Trump DOJ threats, defends voting policies

Republicans Can’t Afford to Lose Votes

The White House is being forced to court a Republican senator who President Trump has labeled a “loser” and another whose political career Trump ended to advance acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s AG nomination to the Senate floor.