Crypto mogul sues Trump family venture over alleged fraud

(WASHINGTON) — Republicans are punting on plans to advance a $70 billion immigration bill, retreating after meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to address concerns about the administration’s anti-weaponization fund.

The move pushes the process until at least after their weeklong Memorial Day recess after the House and Senate were sent home Thursday afternoon.

Earlier, Senate Republicans were poised to try to rein in two of President Donald Trump’s controversial spending wishes: $1 billion for the East Wing expansion and nearly $1.8 billion for an “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” two people familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.

Blanche canceled pre-scheduled travel to go up to Capitol Hill to attempt to quell the growing Republican outrage over the “anti-weaponization fund,” which would be used to compensate allies who say they have suffered injustices at the hand of the Biden administration. But Blanche’s meeting seems to have completely backfired.

There was yelling in the room, multiple sources told ABC News, with some senators — even some vocal Trump supporters — telling Blanche they believed they’d lose the Senate majority over the fund.

Blanche even tried to placate Republican senators by releasing a fact sheet earlier Thursday that stated they themselves can apply to receive money from the fund.

Republicans are looking at ways to use the bill to impose guardrails on Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund.

On Wednesday afternoon, some Republicans told reporters that the $1 billion for White House security — including funding for the ballroom — would likely be removed from the bill because there was a lack of GOP support.

Because the text of the new bill hasn’t been made public, it’s not yet clear exactly what restrictions Republicans may try to impose on the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” the core of the settlement between the Department of Justice and Trump to resolve his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.

The taxpayer-funded pool of money will be administered by a five-person commission appointed by the acting attorney general with little oversight aside from the president, who could remove members. 

Senators were working on potential provisions to address their concerns on the fund, but by Thursday afternoon, those discussions still appeared to be very far apart.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins said “no,” Blanche did not change her mind about the weaponization fund.

Republican Sen. John Hoeven said the “consensus building process” on the matter is “going to require more work.”

“We just don’t have the right configuration where we know we have 50 votes,” he said. 

Republicans could try to embed guardrails for the fund in the actual bill, or they could instead try to offer an amendment addressing the fund once the bill is on the Senate floor.

However, if Republicans don’t do something, it is widely expected that Democrats will certainly try to.

Senate Republicans are aiming to muscle the $70 billion immigration enforcement package through using a budget tool called reconciliation, which will allow them to pass the bill with a simple majority of votes in the Senate instead of the usual 60 votes that it takes to approve most legislative matters.

But before the bill can pass, there will be a voting marathon known as a vote-a-rama, during which lawmakers are able to offer unlimited amendments to the bill.

Democrats are powerless to block this package from passing if Republicans stick together, but Democrats could put forward a number of amendments that force Republicans to take politically tricky votes.

If Republicans do not come up with a clear way to address the “anti-weaponization” fund in their underlying bill or in an amendment that is popular with Republicans who oppose the fund, Democratic-led amendments that look to restrict the fund could very well get the necessary GOP support to pass on the Senate floor.

Some Senate Republicans who Trump has publicly scorned in recent weeks have become the fund’s most outspoken critics, including Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost his primary race in Louisiana after Trump endorsed his opponent.

Cassidy spoke out on Wednesday night, bashing the fund.

“People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries and paying for gas, not about putting together a $1.8 billion fund for the President and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability. This is adding to our national debt. If there needs to be a settlement, the administration should bring it to Congress to decide,” Cassidy wrote in a post on X.

Regardless of what Republicans do, Democrats are expected to use the vote-a-rama to force a number of votes that they hope will pin down Republicans on the fund.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal told ABC News on Wednesday that he intends to force votes on amendments to “stop this illegal abhorrent slush fund” during the vote-a-rama.

With enough GOP support, Democrats could have a real chance of putting restraints on — or even eliminating — this fund as part of the massive package. Depending on how Democrats craft their amendments surrounding the IRS fund, it could take as few as four Republican supporters to pass some of them.

What happened to the ballroom funding?

The $1 billion that was intended for White House security, including the security aspects of Trump’s ballroom, is being scrapped by Republicans, according to some GOP lawmakers. The Republican lawmakers are saying there isn’t enough support in their conference to move forward with the funding.

The Senate’s rule keeper said over the weekend that $1 billion could not be included in the bill under the Senate rules. Even though some Republicans initially said they’d redraft the measure, a number of GOP senators came out forcefully against the $1 billion allocation and threatened to tank the entire bill if it was not removed.

Democrats were expected to call up a number of amendment votes to try to strip the ballroom funding out of the bill. Those amendments only would have needed the support of four Republicans and likely would have passed.

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(WASHINGTON) — A key GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee whose vote is needed to secure acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation as the next attorney general said Thursday that he will require Blanche to sit down with victims of deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein before he can vote for him. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced the new condition during a hearing Thursday where one of the witnesses was Epstein victim Dani Bensky.

Facing a potentially rocky confirmation, Blanche made a brief attempt to meet with Epstein survivors on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon. 

He and his team arrived at a Senate Judiciary Committee office where they sat for about half an hour, but no one joined them.

“I rearranged my schedule to try to meet with them,” Blanche told ABC News after leaving the office. “I’ve been here waiting. It didn’t work out, so we’re going to see if there’s a way we can meet either later today or sometime soon.”

“There’s nothing newsworthy about this fact because the Department of Justice will always meet with victims or their representatives, and if those victims or their representatives have evidence that anybody committed a crime, whether it has to do with Jeffrey Epstein, anybody else that was associated with Jeffrey Epstein, or anybody else, we will of course move forward and investigate and prosecute,” Blanche said.

Bensky testified in Thursday’s hearing that Blanche has never responded to repeated attempts to reach him to sit down and recount her story. 

“Blanche was willing to say that he would meet with [Epstein victims] and counsel — I understand the restriction that counsel has to be present,” Tillis said. “I expect that meeting to occur before I vote to vote out of this committee and I’m trying to get to yes. But this is a very important part of getting to yes.”

“There should not be any reason why, based on what Mr. Blanche said yesterday, if he said that he would do it today, then he can certainly do it over the next two weeks,” Tillis added.

Blanche told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing Wednesday that he would be happy to meet with victims but initially said he couldn’t meet with them personally if they were represented by legal counsel, before correcting himself later in the hearing. 

“I never said I can’t meet with them. I said if they were represented, I had to meet through counsel,” Blanche said. “But of course, I can meet with them. I’m the acting attorney general of the United States, so yes, I can.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch responded publicly to personal attacks by President Donald Trump in an interview with ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis, suggesting he is determined to remain “independent” and “fearless” in fulfilling his duty despite harsh criticism from the president who appointed him.

After Gorsuch voted with Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberals to invalidate Trump’s sweeping global tariffs in February, the president lashed out at his nominees Gorsuch and Barrett, calling them a “disgrace,” “disloyal,” “unpatriotic,” “fools and lapdogs,” and “an embarrassment to their families.”

Gorsuch told Davis the comments prompted him to reflect on the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

“We want independent judges, people who are fearless and able to apply the law without respect to persons, as our judicial oath says, right? That’s why we’re giving life [tenure] to anybody, and it’s quite an honor,” Gorsuch said when asked for his reaction to Trump. “It’s a humbling privilege to be able to serve in this capacity, and I’m just one link in a long chain.”

Gorsuch, who rarely does media interviews, spoke with ABC News ahead of publication of a new children’s book, “Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence,” officially released Tuesday.

“We tell the story about the debate that led up to [the Declaration]. It almost didn’t go through,” the justice said of the nation’s founding charter, penned 250 years ago this year. “None of this is inevitable, and it isn’t inevitable that it will survive. America’s biggest enemy is itself. I believe we have to recommit every generation … if we’re going to carry those ideals forward.”

Even before he was confirmed in 2017, Gorsuch was forced to respond to extraordinary attacks on the federal judiciary by a sitting president, after Trump in his first term targeted judges who blocked controversial policies. Then-Judge Gorsuch described Trump’s behavior as “disheartening” and “demoralizing.”

Now, the conservative justice, 58, who will mark a decade on the high court bench next year, said he shares Roberts’ concern that a surge in personal attacks against judges is “dangerous,” even if intense criticism can be fair game.

“Part of the job of the judge is to accept criticism. Right? Everybody’s got a right to free speech,” Gorsuch said. “It’s a raucous thing in democracy, and that’s good. That’s great. And part of that is part of our story. Part of our story too, is realizing, again, that the person sitting across from you probably loves his country every bit as much as he did.”

Gorsuch said he was “heartbroken” by the recent attempted assassination of Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and that the episode appeared to be part of a broader deterioration of civility in politics.

“What keeps me up at night is disagreements that we have, and our sometimes incapacity to realize the humanity of the people we disagree with,” he said.

Gorsuch has publicly maintained a friendly personal relationship with senior liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, making several joint appearances in an effort to promote civics education and attempt to shore up faith in the Court as an institution.

“When I disagree with my colleagues … I never question that the person sitting across from me loves this country every bit as much as I do, that they love the Constitution and Declaration [of Independence], and that they’re doing their best.”

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