Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s administration was dropping the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) anti-weaponization fund.
Blanche told the House Appropriations Subcommittee that the fund, which aimed at compensating people weaponized by the government, is dead. Many Senate Republicans staunchly opposed the fund and could have supported a Democrat-led amendment to completely kill it, which raised the likelihood of Trump vetoing a Republican-led reconciliation package intended to fund immigration enforcement.
“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said during the hearing.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed during a Tuesday press gaggle that the weaponization fund was “off the table.”
“Speaker Johnson just told us it’s his understanding that this fund is off the table, so is that your understanding after speaking with the acting attorney general?” a reporter asked.
“That is correct,” Thune said during a gaggle attended by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The fund aimed to compensate victims of government weaponization, which raised concerns that defendants convicted of violent crimes during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot would receive these funds. It was part of a settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to end a civil lawsuit filed in January over the leak of his tax returns by an independent contractor.
Blanche defended the fund’s purpose, arguing that the reason for its existence remained important.
“The reasons for the fund — it’s something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them,” he said. “The reasons for the fund … remain as important as [they] were before.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that he told Trump the fund made it difficult for Republicans to get the package to his desk, adding that he believed the fund was “off the table.” The speaker met with Trump at the White House on Monday to discuss the fund and strategies for passing the legislation.
A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, temporarily blocked the government from moving forward with the fund while litigation challenging it was pending. Following the ruling, the DOJ confirmed to the Daily Caller Monday that they were dropping the fund.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told his colleagues Monday that Democrats would fight to “kill” the fund, accusing Trump of using it for his alleged “corrupt” purposes. Republican opponents of the fund included Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Thune previously stated he was “not a fan.”
The reconciliation package is in response to the 76-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after Democrats refused to fund the agency following high-profile shootings involving immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in January. When the fund threatened the reconciliation bill’s passage, some Senate Republicans called for the chamber to abandon the broader package and return to a narrower bill focused on funding Immigration Customs and Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and DHS.
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