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Fund scrapped amid backlash
The Trump administration’s “anti-weaponization” fund, designed to hand out $1.8bn in taxpayer funding to political allies, lasted “all of two weeks” before the Department of Justice abandoned the idea, with the DOJ officially ending the “anti-weaponisation” fund on Tuesday.
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said the provision shielding Trump and his family from tax audits would remain in place, and the BBC reported that the decision followed an intense backlash from Republicans in Congress.
The controversy centered on a settlement over a lawsuit Trump dropped against the IRS, and the fund would have paid people the administration decided were unjustly targeted by the Biden administration.
The BBC also reported that Republicans threatened to derail a critical immigration bill if the administration didn’t drop the plan to give public funds to Trump supporters, including potentially rioters who participated in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
In a separate court filing, an ABC News report said a DOJ attorney argued the fund has “not been set up and is now not going forward,” making one lawsuit challenging it moot.
Blanche, Thune, and Schumer
Senate Majority Leader John Thune urged the administration to end its plans for the fund, saying, “The best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” while the BBC described the episode as a rare moment of bipartisan anger in Washington directed at Trump.
The Hill reported that Sen. Bill Cassidy was trying to “drive a stake” through the proposed $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, with Cassidy saying, “I would like to fund control of the border but also do something about the weaponization fund.”
NBC News said the Senate passed a $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies after the backlash over the $1.8 billion fund threatened to derail it, and NBC reported that Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote against the final package.
NBC News also quoted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticizing Republicans for passing what he called a “rotten” bill, saying, “Republicans refused to permanently outlaw Trump’s $2 billion slush fund.”
In a separate development, CNN reported that DOJ told two federal judges the cases challenging the fund are moot because the administration has abandoned the program, and CNN quoted DOJ’s argument that the fund “is now not going forward.”
What happens next in Congress
Even as DOJ filings said the fund was not moving forward, the political fight spilled into the legislative process, with NBC News reporting that the Senate passed the $70 billion immigration enforcement bill on a 52-47 vote after weeks of delays.
NBC News said the bill included $38.6 billion for ICE, $22.6 billion for the Border Patrol, $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, and $108.5 million for child exploitation investigations, while it did not include security funding for the White House ballroom.
NBC News reported that Republicans defeated multiple attempts to codify ending or changing the settlement fund, and it noted that an amendment to prohibit payments from the fund to Jan. 6 rioters convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers failed to get the 60 votes needed.
The Globe and Mail reported that U.S. Senate Republicans cleared the first hurdle on Thursday by narrowly beating back a Democratic effort to permanently block Trump from creating a US$1.776-billion settlement fund, and it quoted John Thune saying, “I can’t predict how it comes out.”
Lawfare framed the question as whether the fund was truly dead or “on pause,” while noting that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a House Appropriations subcommittee, “We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” and that the settlement agreement provides the program “may be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties.”
