Fitzpatrick And Suozzi Lead House Bid To Kill Trump’s $1.8 Billion Anti-Weaponization Fund

A bipartisan House effort led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) aims to kill the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund created by the Justice Department, which could pay allies of President Donald Trump, according to three people granted anonymity.

“Senate goes on break amid GOP plan to curtail Trump 'anti-weaponization' and ballroom funding Democrats are powerless to block it from passing if Republicans stick together”

ABC News

Fitzpatrick said he was waiting to hear back from the Justice Department after sending Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche a list of questions about who would be able to access the fund, and he said his constituents “don’t want a DOJ slush fund that has not been described or explained to anybody.”

ABC News

The dispute is tied to a settlement between Trump and the IRS, and CBS News reported that the Justice Department’s new $1.776 billion fund is under immediate scrutiny over legality, enforcement, and implementation.

CBS News also said the fund is set to receive nearly $1.8 billion from the Judgment Fund, which was set up by Congress in 1956 to pay court judgments and settlements of lawsuits against the government, while Politico reported Speaker Mike Johnson raised urgency to block the fund among congressional skeptics.

Legal experts and lawmakers questioned whether the fund can be implemented without Congress, and CBS News quoted law professor Paul Figley saying, “No court is going to allow that. And that's what you're looking at.”

CBS News reported that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called Trump’s settlement the “most brazen act of self-dealing in the history of the presidency,” and argued it likely violated the Constitution's Domestic Emoluments Clause.

CBS News

In the Senate, GOP anger over the fund helped derail efforts to advance Trump’s immigration enforcement package, and Los Angeles Times reported that Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged concerns after a reportedly contentious private meeting with acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche.

Thune told reporters, “It’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” as the dispute pushed the process until after the weeklong Memorial Day recess.

As Republicans tried to curtail the fund, ABC News reported that Democrats were “powerless to block it from passing if Republicans stick together,” while Republicans were retreating after meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to address concerns about the administration's anti-weaponization fund.

“Washington — The Justice Department's new $1”

CBS News

ABC News said Republicans were looking at ways to use the bill to impose guardrails on Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund, and it described the taxpayer money being administered by a five-person commission appointed by the acting attorney general with little oversight aside from the president.

NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth reported that Senate Majority Leader John Thune had aimed to get the reconciliation package through the Senate and onto the House before the Memorial Day holiday, but GOP senators emerged from a closed-door briefing with top Justice Department officials with more questions than answers.

Thune said after the private briefing, “I think the administration is putting itself in a bad spot,” and the same report said the Republican-only reconciliation bill would provide about $70 billion in funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol as the June 1 deadline was effectively missed.