The White House is apparently scrapping plans for a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate allies of President Donald Trump after congressional pushback, including from Republicans.
The Trump administration declined to comment. However, it pointed to a statement in which the Justice Department agreed to abide by a judge’s ruling that blocked the fund’s creation.
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In the statement, posted on Monday to X, the department said it “disagrees strongly with the decision on the Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
However, the statement said: “The Court stated that under no circumstances, may the Department of Justice proceed with the Anti-Weaponization Fund recently established in order to make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to so many people.”
The fund was part of a settlement that Trump reached with the Internal Revenue Service over a contract worker’s leak of his tax documents.
As part of the settlement, the Justice Department said it would administer the fund designed to compensate people who claim they were targeted by a “weaponized” justice system. The department did not describe in detail how it would assess individual claims.
The department expressed defiance as recently as Friday, when it said it would “not allow the policy preferences of judges to interfere with our efforts to provide restitution to victims of lawfare.”
However, both Republicans and Democrats opposed the fund.
Shortly before the Justice Department issued its statement, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he hoped the White House would shut down the proposal.
“I made my views very clear on the issue,” Thune told reporters, according to The Hill. “I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves.”
Senate Democrats also launched multiple efforts to try to stop the fund. In a “Dear Colleague” letter on Monday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats were launching a coordinated effort to “kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door.”
Dissension over the fund threatened efforts by Republicans to approve a measure that would fund immigration enforcement through the rest of Trump’s term. GOP leaders are trying to pass the funding bill without Democratic support through a budgetary process known as reconciliation.
“If Republicans return to reconciliation, we will be ready with amendments to shut the fund down,” Schumer wrote. “If they try to bury the issue, we will force them to the Senate floor. If they try to sneak behind appropriations, we will fight them there too.”
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