A pair of documents issued by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, that narrow or dissolve aspects of a deal to resolve President Trump’s lawsuit against the I.R.S. have met the demands of two Republican holdouts.
Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas refused to support Mr. Blanche’s nomination unless he committed in writing to dropping a $1.8 billion fund funneling taxpayer money to the president’s allies and putting stricter limits on a part of the plan that provides sweeping protections to Mr. Trump and those in his inner circle from I.R.S. audits.
Critics, however, say the written assurances are a political solution to a political problem, rather than a legally binding document.
“This case was flagrantly illegal from the start and they’re clearly trying to find a political way out of it that gets the attorney general confirmed without giving up their legal rights to actually enforce this illegal settlement,” said Matthew Platkin, a Democratic former New Jersey attorney general. He is now in private practice, representing various people suing over the fund.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
For weeks, Mr. Blanche had resisted putting into writing his testimony to lawmakers that Mr. Trump’s fund was truly dead or that the tax protections applied more narrowly than the language in his initial order suggested. But on Sunday night, the administration relented.
One of the two documents Mr. Blanche released stated that the order creating the fund “is rescinded and shall have no force or effect.” The second document limits a provision that gave broad protection to Mr. Trump, his relatives, and “related or affiliated individuals” from tax audits. The new written order from Mr. Blanche says that the provision only covers the president, two of his sons and his company, and that it applies “only retroactively.”
Mr. Tillis and Mr. Cornyn said in a statement that the documents assuaged their concerns, ending an intraparty stalemate that had stalled Mr. Blanche’s confirmation process for days. The senators added that they believed the department had “acknowledged in a binding written order” that the audit protections were limited, “addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share.”
Mr. Platkin said that was clearly not the case. He pointed to the original wording of the documents that created what Democrats have called a slush fund that could be used to pay convicted rioters of Jan. 6, 2021, and other supporters of Mr. Trump who have been investigated, prosecuted or claim to have been mistreated by the federal government.
The original terms of the documents creating the fund said it “may be modified only with the written agreement of the parties” — a reference to Mr. Trump, his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., the Trump Organization and specific government agencies.
The creation of the fund elicited legal challenges in part because it was drafted by private lawyers for Mr. Trump negotiating with lawyers in the Trump administration. The deal was meant to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit demanding at least $10 billion from the I.R.S. over the leak of his tax returns years ago. It was also meant to settle Mr. Trump’s claims, made directly to the federal government, for $230 million in compensation for past F.B.I. investigations of his conduct.
Mr. Blanche and others have argued that judges had no authority to review how it was created or its terms.
Mr. Blanche’s order, however, is a government document signed only by him. “So absent any, a new executed agreement that they enter into, all of this is meaningless as a matter of law,” Mr. Platkin said.
For one, an order from the attorney general can be reversed by a future order from an attorney general, so in theory the fund could be revived by the same type of written document any time after Mr. Blanche is confirmed.
Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, echoed those concerns in a statement, asserting that the new written promise did not prevent the administration “from bringing the slush fund back from the dead next week.” He noted that it “still leaves vague who and what is covered” by the tax provisions.
Mr. Cornyn, speaking to reporters on Monday, pushed back, saying, “There’s literally nothing we could do other than have the president change the settlement agreement to make them legally binding.”
He added, “What we could do, and what we did do, is get Todd Blanche to testify under oath, and then to get the D.O.J. on the record that this is their official interpretation of those provisions.”
Mr. Tillis acknowledged the potential limitations of the written assurances. “Now, could the president completely reverse this and create a new fund?” he said. “He could, and then he can answer to the American people.”
Another still-open question is whether judges who are overseeing lawsuits over the fund will accept Mr. Blanche’s written assurances, absent a sworn declaration from the acting attorney general. One of those judges, Leonie M. Brinkema, has demanded that top administration officials file sworn declarations to the court.
Skye Perryman, the president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, one of the groups that sued over the fund, expressed doubts that Mr. Blanche’s written promise was legally binding, given the administration’s refusal weeks ago to comply with the judge’s request.
“If the Justice Department truly intended to end the anti-weaponization fund on its own, it would submit the sworn declaration that the court in our matter requested, amend the agreement that created the fund, and make clear that it cannot be revived,” she said. Mr. Blanche and the administration, she said, “appear to want to have their cake and eat it too.”
Finally, the Justice Department’s longstanding authority to settle lawsuits against the government means that with or without the formal mechanism of a so-called anti-weaponization fund, the administration can still cut million-dollar checks to people who claim to have been victimized by prior administrations.
Last week, lawyers for an anti-abortion activist, convicted by a Tennessee jury of violating federal law and later pardoned by Mr. Trump, announced that he had received a seven-figure settlement from the government.
Michael Gold and Olivia Diaz contributed reporting.
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