John Cornyn On Not Ending Trump Tax Deal, Slush Fund: We Did Our Best

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Monday it would not have been possible to get a better deal out of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to undo President Donald Trump's self-serving settlement of a lawsuit he filed against his own administration.  

Cornyn said he would vote to confirm Blanche as attorney general after the nominee announced changes to the settlement on Sunday, including the cancellation of an earlier order creating a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" Trump had planned to use to pay political loyalists like the Jan. 6 rioters. 

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Blanche left in place another part of the settlement giving the president, his sons and his business immunity from any ongoing tax enforcement. 

"We didn't have the authority to sort that out. All we had the authority to do what we did, and I think did the best we could," Cornyn told HuffPost. 

Blanche announced the changes at the urging of Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

Cornyn's announcement that he would support Blanche is the latest and one of the most glaring examples of a Capitol Hill Republican seeming to take a stand against Trump, then caving and doing what the president wants. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Cornyn could single-handedly stall Blanche's nomination. After delaying it for a week, he relented in return for two pieces of paper that have little obvious practical impact on Trump's faux settlement.

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During a hearing last month, Cornyn pointed out to Blanche that the original settlement agreement establishing the fund included a clause saying it could be modified "only with the written agreement" of the parties to Trump's lawsuit, namely Donald Trump, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization. Cornyn had mocked Blanche's response during the hearing as imbecilic, and none of the parties to the original agreement signed Blanche's directive on Sunday.

Trump has even said he would bring the slush fund back to life, contrary to Blanche's past statements that it won't move forward, and the Justice Department has refused to disavow the fund in court proceedings. 

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Nevertheless, on Monday, Cornyn said he accepted Blanche's unilateral cancellation as good enough. "That order has been rescinded, and so that's gone away," Cornyn said. 

As for the second part of the settlement, which "forever barred" the government from pursuing any tax enforcement against the Trumps or the Trump Organization, Cornyn hailed Blanche's clarification that it can't also apply to "affiliates" or "subsidiaries" — language Cornyn suggested could apply to a range of people or organizations that could sue to block the government from enforcing laws against them. Cornyn acknowledged they could still try, but said the new documents Blanche produced will make it harder to prevail in court.  

"Ultimately, it's just speculation as to who might actually make a claim for immunity," Cornyn said. "It's probably not possible to write something that is absolutely binding, but some court is going to be interpreting it, and I think we provided them as much evidence about the intention of the DOJ as we possibly can."

Trump sued the IRS in January over illegal leaks of his tax information in 2019 and 2020 by an IRS contractor. The contractor, who also stole and leaked tax returns for thousands of other tax filers, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024.The Justice Department announced its settlement with Trump's private legal team before the judge overseeing the case had a chance to throw it out because the defendants and the plaintiffs were actually on the same side.

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Several other victims of the tax leak sued the government, but none got a settlement like Trump did. HuffPost asked Cornyn how that was fair. 

"I don't know anything about those other potential victims, so I can't really comment," he said.

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