Congress White House Ballroom

President Donald Trump’s political revenge tour met its potential match this week as angry Republican senators finally said no, even if temporarily. Pushed to a breaking point by his demand for a $1.776 billion fund for Jan. 6 rioters and others he believes were wrongly prosecuted, senators simply refused and left for break. The moment was a sudden flex from the Republican majority almost always more willing to accommodate the Republican president than confront him. The result left unfinished for now the GOP’s top priority of passing a roughly $70 billion budget package that would fuel Trump’s immigration and deportation operations.

In pushing to prove his loyalty to President Donald Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has agitated the same Republican lawmakers whose votes he may need to secure the permanent job. Blanche insists he’s not auditioning for the job of attorney general. But a succession of splashy, eyebrow-raising moves since he took the position on an acting basis last month has left no doubt about the impression he’s hoping to make on the president who appointed him. When he signed off on a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate Trump’s allies for alleged political prosecution, Blanche put himself at the center of a Republican firestorm.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says the Trump administration is scrapping plans to create a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate allies of the Republican president after widespread political backlash and setbacks in the courts. Blanche says, “We are not moving forward with the fund, period.” His comments during a House committee hearing Tuesday came in response to mounting pressure from Republicans for reassurances that the Justice Department’s plans were off the table before they would move forward with legislation funding President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies. Blanche said the Justice Department was not abandoning an element of a settlement with the IRS that gave Trump and his family immunity from tax audits.