Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy says he would bar Jan. 6 defendants from any taxpayer-funded "anti-weaponization" payout, setting new conditions on a $1.776 billion proposal that has already stalled Todd Blanche's confirmation as attorney general.
Kennedy, a Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, used a Sunday appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press" to stake out a position that puts him at odds with the broadest reading of the fund while still leaving room for a legislative deal. He said he would "take them off the table", meaning defendants who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and would not hand the administration open-ended authority over the money.
The fund, valued at $1.776 billion, grew out of a settlement between President Trump and the IRS over his leaked tax returns. That same settlement established audit protections for Trump, his family members, and his companies. Both the fund and those protections have become flashpoints inside the Republican conference, with at least two GOP senators refusing to advance Blanche's nomination until the Justice Department rewrites the terms.
As recently as June, Kennedy publicly vouched for Blanche's assurances that the Justice Department had shelved the fund. Kennedy told NBC News at the time:
"I think the attorney general is a man of his word, and I'm very comfortable with what he told us, that there would not be an anti-weaponization fund."
That comfort evaporated in a matter of weeks. Trump reopened the possibility of pursuing the fund this past week. On Friday, he said the fund was "dead" but added, "I wish it weren't." By Saturday, he posted on Truth Social that the fund would be "immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done", and floated keeping Blanche as acting attorney general indefinitely if Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina continued to hold up the nomination.
That sequence, Blanche tells Congress the fund is finished, Trump publicly resurrects it days later, left Kennedy in an awkward spot. He handled it Sunday by shifting the conversation toward legislation, telling the interviewer he was open to a bill that would enshrine a version of the fund into law, provided Congress wrote the rules.
Kennedy framed his position around an existing federal statute, the Federal Tort Claims Act, a law that already lets citizens file claims against the government for misconduct. He argued the mechanism for redress already exists.
"We already have an anti-weaponization fund, a pool of money that you can access if you're abused by government, through the Federal Torts Claim Act. But if he wants to improve it, I'm willing to look at it. But I'm not going to give him a blank check."
On the question of Jan. 6 defendants specifically, Kennedy was direct. He said the issue was "too emotional" and "too important" to leave ambiguous, and that he would exclude those defendants from eligibility. That position acknowledges what many Republican voters already sense: lumping people who broke into the Capitol alongside Americans targeted by rogue federal agencies poisons the well for everyone with a legitimate grievance.
Kennedy is not the only Republican senator drawing lines. Cornyn and Tillis have both said they will support Blanche only if the Justice Department alters the conditions of Trump's IRS settlement and provides firm assurances the fund is officially dead. Both senators also want limits on the audit protections the settlement gave Trump and his family.
Their resistance already forced the Senate Judiciary Committee to postpone a hearing on Blanche's nomination last week after it became clear he did not have enough Republican votes to advance. The committee rescheduled the vote for Tuesday.
A federal judge extended a block on the fund last month, adding a legal obstacle on top of the political ones. Between the court order, the Senate holdouts, and Kennedy's new conditions, the fund faces resistance from every direction, including from within Trump's own party.
Kennedy acknowledged the uncertainty around Blanche's confirmation directly. The segment's headline captured his assessment: he "wouldn't bet my house" on Blanche getting confirmed. That is a striking admission from a senator in the president's own party, and it reflects just how tangled the fund, the IRS settlement, and the nomination have become.
The timeline matters. Blanche told lawmakers the fund was dead. Kennedy believed him. Then Trump, in the span of roughly 24 hours, went from calling the fund "dead" to declaring it back on the table, and threatening to bypass the Senate entirely by keeping Blanche in an acting role.
That kind of whiplash makes it harder for Republican senators to defend the nomination on the merits. Cornyn and Tillis are not opposing Blanche because they dislike him. They are opposing him because the terms of the deal keep shifting, and the settlement's audit protections raise separate questions about whether the agreement was structured to benefit the president personally rather than the broader class of Americans the fund is supposed to serve.
Kennedy's approach, support a bill, exclude Jan. 6 defendants, and refuse a blank check, offers one path forward. It separates the legitimate concept of compensating Americans who were abused by federal power from the political baggage that has made the fund toxic. Whether the White House accepts those conditions is another question entirely.
The committee vote Tuesday will show whether Blanche has gained any ground, or whether the same Republican holdouts who forced last week's postponement still have the votes to keep the nomination stuck.
When Republican senators are the ones pumping the brakes on a Republican president's signature proposal, the problem is not partisanship, it is the proposal.
