McConnell calls DOJ Trump fund 'utterly stupid, morally wrong' after Blanche meeting
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testifies during a Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing at the Dirksen Senate
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testifies during a Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC on May 19, 2026. Sen. Mitch McConnell on Thursday blasted Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for the Department of Justice's new controversial "lawfare" fund hours after Blanche met with Republican senators in an effort to assuage their concerns about it. "So the nation's top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?
Utterly stupid, morally wrong – Take your pick," McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement obtained by MS NOW. McConnell is the former Senate majority leader. Blanche, earlier in the day, met with GOP senators as pushback grows in Congress over the idea of paying out settlements to people who attacked police during the U.S. Capitol riot in 2021. "I think it's stupid on stilts," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Spectrum News in an interview about the $1.8 billion fund, which was created to settle an unrelated lawsuit by President Donald Trump against the Internal Revenue Service.
The fund would purportedly compensate those who allege they were victims of prosecutorial overreach or worse by the DOJ during the Biden administration, which could include hundreds of people convicted or charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. "It will invariably put us in a position where your taxpayer dollars and my taxpayers' dollars could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer, admitted their guilt, got convicted, got pardoned, and now we're gonna pay them for that?" Tillis said.
"That's absurd," he added. "The American people are going to reject this out of hand."
The BriefWire