President Donald Trump’s plan to distribute $1.7 billion in taxpayer money to people claiming they were politically targeted by the federal government is collapsing under Republican resistance—and the senator threatening to finish it off is a man Trump helped drive from office.

In a furious 253-word Truth Social post Friday, Trump attacked outgoing Texas Sen. John Cornyn for demanding the elimination of the administration’s so-called anti-weaponization fund.

Cornyn possesses enormous leverage.

He has threatened to block acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s permanent confirmation unless the Justice Department formally abandons the proposed fund and narrows a controversial legal settlement involving Trump and his family.

The standoff has already forced Senate Republicans to postpone a committee vote on Blanche’s nomination. Trump has suggested that he could temporarily withdraw Blanche and submit his name again after Cornyn leaves Congress.

But the president is clearly not prepared to surrender quietly.

Trump accused Cornyn of opposing the fund only after the president endorsed his successful Republican primary challenger. Cornyn, who will leave the Senate at the end of his term, no longer faces the threat of another Trump-backed campaign against him.

That newfound freedom has turned him into one of the White House’s most dangerous Republican obstacles.

In his online broadside, Trump defended the proposed fund as compensation for Americans whose lives he claims were destroyed by the Biden administration. He specifically invoked people prosecuted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, describing them as patriots who had been “hunted down like dogs.”

That is Trump’s characterization.

Jan. 6 cases included a broad range of conduct, from unlawful entry and obstruction to assaults on police and more serious offenses. Many defendants pleaded guilty, while others were convicted after trials. Trump and his supporters have repeatedly portrayed the prosecutions as political persecution.

The proposed fund would create an unprecedented mechanism for paying people who claim they were unfairly targeted by the Justice Department. Critics argue that it could reward political allies with public money and undermine lawful convictions and investigations.

Trump insists the fund would not personally benefit him.

He claimed that he voluntarily surrendered any payment he might have pursued over federal investigations, including the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. He described that court-authorized search as an extraordinary act of government “weaponization.”

But Cornyn’s objections go beyond Trump’s public explanation.

The controversy is linked to a settlement in litigation Trump brought against the Internal Revenue Service. That agreement reportedly included broad protections for Trump, his relatives and his businesses while also creating the framework for the compensation fund.

Cornyn wants written confirmation that the fund has been terminated. He also wants guarantees that any immunity or protection involving future tax audits will be narrowly limited.

The Justice Department has not given him the assurances he demands.

That refusal has placed Blanche’s nomination in jeopardy.

Blanche is not merely another administration lawyer. He previously served as Trump’s personal attorney and has remained one of the president’s most trusted legal defenders. Trump has described him as a potential historic attorney general.

Yet Cornyn and fellow outgoing Republican Sen. Thom Tillis can prevent his confirmation from advancing through the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Neither senator has much political reason to retreat.

Trump openly turned against them, and both are preparing to leave Congress. Their opposition illustrates the danger facing a president who has used primary challenges to enforce Republican loyalty: Once defeated lawmakers have nothing left to lose, fear can evaporate.

Cornyn has already shown that he is willing to use his remaining months in office aggressively. He has threatened to hold nominees and extract concessions from the administration on other policies.

The anti-weaponization fund may now become the most consequential test of that rebellion.

If Trump backs down, Cornyn will have forced the president to abandon a major priority and publicly weakened his control over Senate Republicans.

If Trump refuses, Blanche’s nomination could remain trapped until the next Congress—or collapse completely.

The president attempted to portray Cornyn’s resistance as personal revenge. But the Texas senator has framed his demands as a defense against an extraordinary legal arrangement that could grant benefits to Trump’s allies and protections to the president’s family.

The dispute has now moved beyond one fund.

It is a battle over whether Trump can transform his grievances into federal policy, whether Senate Republicans will still obey him and whether taxpayers can be required to compensate people the president considers victims.

Trump promised that those people would be paid back.

Instead, the fund is crumbling—and the Republican senator Trump tried to politically bury may be the one who finally kills it.