Texas Senator John Cornyn just caved to Donald Trump's demands.
The outgoing Lone Star lawmaker faced a barrage of criticism Sunday after he decided that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's vague assurances against Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund were good enough.
Cornyn had previously tasked the Justice Department chief with formally ending the slush fund altogether, predicating his support for Blanche's tentative promotion on it. But a tricky memo released by Blanche Sunday night seemed to have tripped up Cornyn's office—and his offer.
On its face, Blanche's note appeared to terminate the fund, specifying that the order was "rescinded and shall have no force or effect." However, journalists were quick to comment that the language employed in the rest of Blanche's memo not only suggested that the honey pot fund would be preserved in some form, but also failed to terminate Trump's underlying IRS immunity arrangement.
But vague gestures at accountability were apparently all Cornyn needed to get in line.
"Senator Cornyn has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice, which will be issuing a formal order permanently terminating the anti-weaponization fund and making clear in a binding written document that the scope of the audit settlement is limited to only the plaintiffs, including the President, and the IRS," said Cornyn spokesperson Natalie Yezbick in a statement.
The fund was the result of an unprecedented deal that Trump made with himself after he dropped his faltering $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. The arrangement included a curious addendum from Blanche, immunizing Trump from further federal prosecution. The government of the United States, Blanche wrote, would be "forever barred and precluded" from pursuing "any and all claims" against Trump, his family, or his business. The fund itself would be used as reparations, paid for by U.S. taxpayers through the Department of Justice, to virtually any right-winger that felt impugned by the previous presidential administration.
The idea of the fund fell apart following weeks of backlash, numerous lawsuits, and opposition from even Republican lawmakers, who felt the issue had gummed up party efforts to pass a reconciliation bill.
But Trump has refused to let the topic go, repeatedly affirming his support for the supposedly defunct fund.
"It is dead, but I wish it weren't, to be honest with you," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Friday. "I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused."
Blanche's efforts to salvage the fund should be viewed as yet more evidence that the fund is not as dead as officials have publicly claimed.
"Let's be clear: It's more certain that Trump is still pursuing bounties for rioters today than when this started," wrote legal journalist Adam Klasfeld on Monday. "Trump is openly stating that's the goal, taking legal action to get there and refusing to do the one thing that would kill it."
Cornyn is in the twilight years of his last term in office, a decades-long career cut short by Trump's decision to endorse another candidate in Texas's GOP primary in May. The cut cord has granted Cornyn the breathing room to ignore larger party directives and push back harder against the Trump administration's off-color orders, but apparently, Cornyn is only willing to take that so far.