Congress didn’t kill Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund. So where does it stand?
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support
By Kaanita Iyer, CNN
(CNN) — Senate Republicans rejected multiple attempts to kill President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund amid bipartisan concerns and a temporary court ruling against it.
The Trump administration announced the creation of the $1.776 billion fund last month. The effort would allow the government to use taxpayer money to pay those who claim they were victims of political prosecutions by the Biden administration.
Critics of the fund have said it would serve as a slush fund for Trump’s allies. Some lawmakers, including key Republicans, raised concerns that the fund lacks guardrails. Lawmakers were particularly concerned that payouts would go to rioters, including those who assaulted police officers, at the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, which the Trump administration didn’t rule out.
Here’s where the status of the fund stands.
The fund has faced at least two legal challenges, including from a watchdog group and from police officers who defended the Capitol during the riot.
Last week, a federal judge in Virginia temporarily blocked the administration from taking steps to set up the fund and barred it from releasing any funds from it. But that ruling was highly technical: It didn’t address the legality of the program but was instead intended to get the court time to review a lawsuit seeking to kill the program in full.
The Trump administration is expected to file its response to the lawsuit in court on Friday.
In the meantime, the issue created a rift among Republicans in Congress with some stalling on considering an immigration funding bill until the White House committed to dropping the compensation fund.
In an attempt to convince Congress to vote for the immigration bill, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told House lawmakers on Tuesday that the Justice Department will not be “moving forward with the fund, period.”
Democratic Rep. Grace Meng then asked, “Not moving forward, ever?,” to which Blanche responded, “Correct.”
Ultimately, Republicans didn’t want to derail one of Trump’s key legislative priorities, and advanced the immigration bill without any language formally killing the fund early Friday after hours of talks between GOP leaders and Republican holdouts. One party member still defected.
Meanwhile, the president has not been so unequivocal, giving mixed signals about the future of the fund.
Trump, a day after Blanche’s vow to lawmakers, said that he doesn’t know if the fund is dead, which has led to confusion about its status.
“I’d have to ask the lawyers, I don’t know,” he said when asked whether the fund is fully dead or just on hold. “As far as I’m concerned, it was a beautiful thing.”
The fund is a result of a settlement between the Internal Revenue Service and Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organization, after the president dropped his $10 billion lawsuit alleging that the IRS failed to protect them from an unauthorized leak of their tax returns.
Trump himself will not receive any payments, but will receive a formal apology, the Justice Department has said.
So far, the fund remains temporarily blocked by a court — but its future ultimately depends on who you ask.
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CNN’s Devan Cole, Aileen Graef, Sarah Ferris, Lauren Fox, Manu Raju, Ted Barrett, Alison Main, Adam Cancryn, Kaitlan Collins, Hannah Rabinowitz, Tierney Sneed, Casey Gannon, and Paula Reid contributed to this report.
