GOP Senate candidate Mike Collins became one of the first major Republican candidates for high office to not just back President Donald Trump's "anti-weaponization fund," but also to say that people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 were eligible to get payouts.
Collins was pressed at a campaign stop in Savannah by Dominic Box, a January 6 rioter and QAnon conspiracy theorist who was one of the more than 1,500 people pardoned by Trump's mass clemency when he first took office.
"With Todd Blanche being confirmed as the new attorney general, and the Victims of Political Weaponization Fund being such a controversial issue that's important to me — I lost everything, I'm a business owner now in Savannah by the grace of God, I lost my home, my car, my entire life savings," said Box. "To put it clearly, would you support either the Victims of Political Weaponization Fund, or some form of compensatory relief, not just to January 6ers like myself, but all Americans, left, right, and center, who have become victims of a weaponized political system?"
"A lot of this has been politicized and weaponized," replied Collins, adding, “When the federal government harms you, then yes, they have a liability too. That’s easy. Yes.”
The status of the fund, which has been controversial even among many Republicans in the Senate, became a key sticking point in the confirmation of Blanche, which was stalled until he offered a fairly weak written commitment to holdout Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX) that the fund would not be moving forward.
Almost immediately after being fully confirmed, Blanche's Justice Department issued a sweeping new opinion giving Trump and his allies new immunity protections.