GEOFF BENNETT: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination to lead the Justice Department full-time is in limbo after a handful of Republican senators have blocked it from moving forward.

Two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, say they will oppose Blanche's nomination unless the DOJ kills a $1.8 billion fund to provide payments to Trump allies who believe they have been wrongfully prosecuted.

The president said in a social media post that he would keep Todd Blanche as acting attorney general, saying -- quote -- "I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd's name if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office.

But Senator Tillis pushed back against the president's plan.

SEN.

THOM TILLIS (R-NC): His statement lends credence to what the Democrats are saying about him resurrecting this thing at the appropriate time.

And so either people are lying to me, saying that this was moot and that we could move on, or the president's getting bad advice from somebody, saying, no, you don't want to do this, boss.

GEOFF BENNETT: New reporting from The New York Times shows that, even though the fund is on hold, the DOJ is still issuing similar settlements.

For more, we're joined now by Devlin Barrett, who covers the Justice Department for "The Times."

It's good to see you.

DEVLIN BARRETT, The New York Times: Good to see you, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: So based on your reporting, why is pulling the Blanche nomination more acceptable to President Trump than making concessions on this fund?

DEVLIN BARRETT: Well, for one thing, it even if you pull the Blanche nomination now, Trump doesn't really lose much control of the Justice Department, because Blanche is already the acting attorney general and can keep him there for quite a long time if he wants to.

So you're not actually losing him being in charge of the department.

That would continue.

And what Trump seems unwilling to let go of is the possibility of reviving the weaponization fund, as he calls it, and also this condition that sort of gets not just him, but his relatives, his companies, and a very undefined group of people called affiliates off the hook for any audits from by the IRS.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you have reported that even if the administration kills this fund, the DOJ can apparently keep making these payouts one settlement at a time through the ordinary claims process.

Is that right?

DEVLIN BARRETT: Right.

The Justice Department has always had this authority and they continue to use it.

We saw an announcement just Tuesday of a more than a million dollar payout to someone that they -- that the administration claims is a victim of the Biden administration era weaponization.

So they're still paying out money, even as all this fight is going on.

GEOFF BENNETT: So is the argument from Tillis and Cornyn, is it symbolic?

DEVLIN BARRETT: I don't think it's symbolic at all.

I think in fact they have gotten a lot of lip service from the administration, and they're asking that lip service be translated on to paper.

And what's so fascinating to me about this standoff is it seems the White House is very, very reluctant to actually put it in writing.

GEOFF BENNETT: And so when Todd Blanche says he promised the senators that this fund won't return, but he also said that the reasons for creating it, this is his words he used, remain as important as they were before, how should that be received?

Is this a signal that the fund could come back if he's confirmed?

DEVLIN BARRETT: I mean, one of the ways in which I think the administration is not endearing itself or generating much credibility is for exactly statements like that.

They keep talking as if they are almost hint-hint, wink-winking that they are in fact going to try to bring this back at some point, or are going to just find another way to skin the cat.

And that is what frustrates the senators.

That is what I think undermines the administration's credibility in these negotiations where they just -- where the senators are clearly determined to get something in writing.

GEOFF BENNETT: There's another dimension here I want to ask you about, because your reporting cites four different federal judges in Florida and Virginia and Tennessee and Minnesota.

They all criticize Blanche by name in written opinions across completely unrelated cases.

In your long experience covering the DOJ, how rare is that?

DEVLIN BARRETT: It's incredibly rare, for two reasons.

One, historically speaking, the number two official of the Justice Department does not aggressively insert themselves into specific cases.

They are key decision-makers, but they often try to stay out of the legal fray.

Blanche is the exact opposite.

Blanche injects himself into very controversial cases and injects his name and his own actions and credibility into those cases, often with bad effect, because you see these judges saying that they distrust the deputy attorney general.

That has been a feature of the entire time he's been running the Justice Department.

GEOFF BENNETT: About this fund, is there any mechanism, whether it's congressional appropriations power, judicial review, the DOJ's own internal rules, that could actually stop taxpayer-funded payouts to people the president believes were somehow wrong?

DEVLIN BARRETT: Absolutely.

Congress could certainly do -- Congress could certainly pass legislation that would limit this.

And judges could certainly try to impose their own limits on it.

I think what's striking about the senators wanting something in writing is that, even if Todd Blanche were to put this in writing, even if the White House were to sign off on putting something in writing, it's just an administration document.

They could issue another written version later.

Even the settlement that created the fund, they have added new documents after the fact.

So even putting it in writing, which is what the senators are asking for, doesn't guarantee that they won't change -- that the administration won't just change the rules again.

Congress passing a law would be different.

Congress passing a law would have more teeth.

GEOFF BENNETT: All right, Devlin Barrett, always good to speak with you.

DEVLIN BARRETT: Great to see you.