Senate Republicans are greeting the Justice Department’s announcement of a new “Anti-Weaponization Fund” with concern, confusion and questions — and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is offering up little clarity on how it will work.

At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday morning, Blanche fielded queries from members of both parties about the logistics of the $1.8 billion account, who would have oversight and whether it could function as a “slush fund” for individuals who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Democrats are, predictably, enraged by the terms of the settlement for President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the government for the leak of his tax information, which resulted in the creation of this account to benefit targets of “weaponization and lawfare.”

“There is no level below which these folks will not go,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I) said in an interview. “It is just disgusting, having come off Law Enforcement Week, to have set up a slush fund to pay off people who attack police officers.”

But Republicans are also signaling deep discomfort with the arrangement, as well as frustration that they weren’t given the answers they were looking for.

“I’ve got more questions than I’ve heard answers for, and … I didn’t hear anything that gave me certainty in terms of how this all comes together,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), after attending the hearing with Blanche. “Can the president just say $1.87 billion? … I don’t know enough about it to feel comfortable.”

Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jerry Moran of Kansas — the top Republicans on the full Appropriations committee and the panel that oversees DOJ funding, respectively — both pressed Blanche at the hearing to explain how payouts from the fund would be managed and who might receive them.

Blanche said repeatedly it would be up to the “commissioners” to determine who would get financial compensation for being victimized by the government. He repeatedly said anyone — even President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who was prosecuted and convicted on gun and tax charges before being pardoned by his father — could apply for compensation.

But he also wouldn’t rule out that Jan. 6 rioters convicted of assaulting police might qualify, a deeply sensitive issue for lawmakers who were at the Capitol that day.

Vice President JD Vance, at a news conference later Tuesday afternoon, further confused the matter by saying “we’re not trying to give money to anybody who attacked a police officer” but also that “we do have people who were accused of attacking law enforcement officers” and “we’re going to evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he was “not a big fan” of the fund and that he didn’t “see a purpose for that.”

“I think that there are, and will be continue to be, a lot of questions around that, that the administration is going to have to answer,” he said later at a news conference.

Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the White House’s staunchest allies who once championed a payout for lawmakers who had their phone data subpoenaed by the Biden administration, said Tuesday he believed senators needed more information.

“Conceptually I understand what he’s trying to do, but I don’t know,” he said. “I think we need to ask more questions.”

A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s not yet clear how Republicans will reconcile their desire for answers with their waning appetite for going against Trump, who has yet again placed the GOP in an awkward situation: Endorse a policy that Democrats are casting as a self-enrichment scheme or get crosswise with the president, who is successfully going after his political enemies in midterm primary campaigns.

Appropriators could choose to put some guardrails on the massive settlement account by restricting funding from going towards its implementation or clearly defining who could benefit from it. Murkowski, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said she would have “serious and significant problems” if the money was given to those convicted for their part in the Capitol attack.

But Moran concluded his probing questions of Blanche by saying the Appropriations Committee did not have jurisdiction “in a sense, because this is mandatory spending” — a sign he may not seek to be proactive in placing limits on how the fund might function.

In a further apparent effort to deflect the issue, Moran asked Blanche during the hearing whether he had spoken to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the account. Blanche replied that he had not “over the past 24 hours.”

Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters that the situation was akin to the $2 million settlement the DOJ reached with former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who sued the government after the Trump administration released their text messages in apparent violation of the federal Privacy Act.

“This has happened before in a Democrat administration, so I’m not sure you should be surprised that there’s justice for people that have had the government weaponized against them,” Grassley said.

Still, he added, “if there’s questions” about the new account, “we’re going to be able to discuss it directly when we have the attorney general before our committee for our usual oversight.”

The panel has not yet scheduled such a hearing with Blanche.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday that the Justice Department, under his leadership, would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the only convicted co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein now serving 20 years in prison for her part in the sex trafficking scheme.

“I can commit to that, of course,” he said in response to a question from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing.

The decision to pardon Maxwell, however, is ultimately up to President Donald Trump, who has not ruled out such an action. Her lawyer has said that she intends to seek clemency to avoid having to serve out the entirety of her sentence and that he believes a pardon is likely.

Blanche, serving in his capacity as the deputy attorney general, interviewed Maxwell in a Florida U.S. attorney’s office last summer over the course of a two day meeting. There, Maxwell said that she never saw Trump engage in impropriety and that she “admire[d] his extraordinary achievement.”

Shortly afterward, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison camp, a move criticized by many as a kind of reward from the administration for Maxwell. Blanche has defended the decision, citing worries about her safety.

Under questioning by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Blanche also apologized for his agency’s failure to redact the names, faces and sometimes even nude images of alleged victims as part of the DOJ release of the Epstein files.

“Any time we release a victim’s name that shouldn’t be released, we have failed as a Department of Justice,” Blanche said, adding to Murray: “I hear your anger.”

He argued that the law passed by Congress last year to compel the release of the Epstein files created significant logistical challenges by requiring disclosure of nearly all Epstein-related records within 30 days.

“It required us to review over six million pieces of paper in a very short period of time, and so, 0.001 percent, we made mistakes, and we owned up to them,” Blanche said.

Senate Republicans advanced part of their immigration enforcement bill Tuesday as they aim to get the package to President Donald Trump’s desk in a matter of days.

The party-line vote of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee followed several unsuccessful attempts by panel Democrats to add new restrictions on the administration’s immigration enforcement operations. That included amendments to require judicial warrants for searches and apprehensions and to keep federal agents out of polling places, among others.

Democrats also sought without avail to address issues not included in the committee’s portion of the bill — including funding the administration has requested for security measures for Trump’s proposed White House ballroom.

The effort by Democrats to attach the new law enforcement rules comes after bipartisan negotiations on that topic fell apart earlier this year, leading to a record 76-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are doing this whole irresponsible and hyper-partisan spending exercise because the Republican majority does not want to pass common sense reforms,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security panel.

Panel Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who said earlier this year he was open to new immigration enforcement rules, warned that amendments from Democrats would “kill the bill” because they had not been litigated by the parliamentarian to ensure they fit within the strict rules governing the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process.

“They have no one to blame but themselves,” Paul said of his Democratic colleagues. “While there could have been a discussion over reforms and bipartisan compromise on this, it didn’t happen because the Democratic base decided they weren’t going to fund ICE.”

The committee vote comes as Republicans are still trying to lock down the votes for their bill because of concerns — and, in some cases, outright opposition — from some members to the $1 billion Secret Service line item that could go toward parts of the White House ballroom.

Peters criticized the Secret Service security funding arguing that it showed the “fecklessness” of Republicans in the face of Trump’s demands.

“Clearly he lied — he said it would never be built with taxpayer monies,” Peters said of Trump. “It’s time to stand up to the president’s ridiculous demands.”

Paul, who has been critical of using taxpayer funding toward the project, noted that the security language is not included in the Homeland Security panel’s portion of the bill.