When Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, arrived at the Capitol on Thursday to meet with Republicans questioning the Justice Department fund that President Trump has said he wants to use to pay people who claim to have been unfairly targeted by the government, he may have expected a few strident complaints.
Instead, what unfolded in an ornate room just off the Senate floor on Thursday morning was a two-hour blowup in which dozens of Republican senators vented their anger and concern about the president’s fund at Mr. Blanche.
They questioned its legal basis, whom it would pay and how the process would work. And they made it clear they wanted no part of the plan, the product of a deal struck between Mr. Trump’s lawyers and his own administration to use money that Congress does not control to pay off purported victims of government mistreatment, potentially including some of the rioters who violently assaulted their workplace during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
By the end, Republicans were so livid that party leaders scrapped planned votes on the party’s top priority — a $72 billion immigration crackdown measure it had planned to muscle through before Memorial Day — punting action for fear of having to cast votes on the fund.
The discussions started out on Thursday morning with a genteel if pointed statement from Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, who told reporters before Mr. Blanche showed up that he and his members were discussing whether to add language to the immigration bill to place limits on the fund.
“Our members have very legitimate questions about it, and we’ve had some conversations about if it’s going to be a feature going forward, what it might look like, and how we might make sure that it’s fenced in appropriately,” he said.
It went downhill from there.
Inside the room, according to people familiar with the session, Mr. Blanche came under withering questioning and criticism from the majority of Republicans about the fund. They were incredulous that they were just learning about it, and deeply dissatisfied with the acting attorney general’s answers to queries about how it would work.
Several Republicans spoke up to express worry that the fund would be used to provide money to people who had attacked police officers during the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and were later pardoned by Mr. Trump. They noted a lack of criteria for any payouts, including a specific prohibition against paying anyone who had been involved in violent actions.
Others questioned the composition of the commission that would be charged with doling out the funds. A one-page memo compiled by the Justice Department and distributed to Republican senators said that five commissioners would be named by the attorney general, with just one chosen in consultation with Congress.
Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Curtis of Utah told reporters that raised red flags for them.
Some Republicans, anticipating that Democrats would propose limitations on steering money to people who had been pardoned by Mr. Trump but then accused of other crimes, pressed Mr. Blanche on how the fund’s managers would weigh such decisions. But many of them felt they did not leave the meeting with more clarity than when they entered.
Senator Susan Collins, who said she opposed the fund in part over concerns that it would provide money for Jan. 6 rioters who had assaulted law enforcement, exited the session saying that Mr. Blanche had not changed her mind.
Later, she cast doubt on whether the plan could survive at all.
“It is in real trouble — and it should be,” Ms. Collins, Republican of Maine, said in an interview.
Not all Republican senators were dug in against the idea. Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, defended it in a floor speech, saying: “Hundreds of innocent patriots sat behind bars over this made-up witch hunt. Now there were some guilty, but a huge number of them were vastly innocent.”
But even some of Mr. Trump’s most loyal allies conceded that if nothing else, the timing of the Justice Department’s announcement of the fund, just days before the Senate was to begin a marathon series of unlimited votes on its immigration bill, was a giant mistake by the Trump administration that left Republicans in Congress in an untenable position.
“Somebody described it as a galactic blunder,” Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, told CNN, “and I think that’s probably true.”
The eruption over the fund took over the Thursday luncheon for Senate Republicans, which was originally scheduled to be a tribute to this weekend’s Indianapolis 500, complete with signature food from the region and race regalia courtesy of home-state Senator Todd Young. Among the items wheeled out at the end of the testy session was a checkered flag of the sort waved at the end of the world-famous race. Republicans now have to turn a few more legislative laps to reach the finish line on their budget measure.
Carl Hulse and Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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