The Justice Department is dropping a $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund it created as part of a settlement with President Trump, although questions remain whether that decision is temporary or permanent.
The decision comes as Republicans in Congress raised concerns about the politics of the arrangement and said they would not be able to pass their party-line immigration and law enforcement funding package without addressing the matter.
Mr. Trump met with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, on Monday to discuss the Anti-Weaponization Fund.
The Justice Department announced later that day that it would no longer move forward with setting up the fund, following an injunction a U.S. district court judge placed on it last week.
A Justice Department spokesperson told The Washington Times that the administration “will abide by the court’s ruling,” although it “disagrees strongly with the decision.”
The spokesperson said the Anti-Weaponization Fund would have been “open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted,” regardless of political affiliation, and was designed “to make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to so many people.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, a Clinton appointee, issued the injunction in a case former federal prosecutor Andrew Floyd brought in the Eastern District of Virginia seeking to “halt and set aside the creation and operation of this lawless fund.”
The injunction barred the Justice Department from taking further action on the Anti-Weaponization Fund while the case was pending. A hearing is scheduled for June 12.
The Justice Department has until Friday to file its opposing views. The spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up question on whether the department will continue to fight the case in court.
Lawmakers are likely to question acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about whether the fund is temporarily or permanently dead when he testifies before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters shortly before the Justice Department’s announcement on abiding by the court injunction that nixing the fund would help Republicans move their law enforcement and immigration funding package that stalled before the Memorial Day recess amid controversy over the fund.
“The best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” the South Dakota Republican said, noting he communicated that view to the president last week and discussed it further with White House aides over the weekend.
When contacted for comment, the White House referred to the Justice Department’s statement.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said the fund may be “dead for now, but Democrats will not stop until it’s well and truly buried.”
“It can never see the light of day,” the New York Democrat said.
Mr. Schumer said the first amendment he plans to offer to Republicans’ funding package will be one “to ban the slush fund permanently and forever.”
“You don’t fix a corrupt slush fund by relying on the word of the most untrustworthy president we’ve ever had. You ban it,” he said. “This slush fund is rotten to core. Democrats will make Republicans vote on it no matter what.”
Mr. Thune said if “the administration effectively shuts it down [and] makes that very, very clear” that he hopes most Republicans would feel comfortable voting down Democrats’ amendments.
He had postponed a plan to bring the funding package to the floor before Memorial Day as several GOP senators threatened to vote for Democrats amendments if the administration did not take action on its own.
The funding package is moving through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process, meaning Republicans can pass it if at least 50 of their 53 members stick together. Vice President J.D. Vance could break any tie votes.
Mr. Thune said he hopes to get the bill passed this week and confirmed it will no longer include security funding for the new White House ballroom, another sticking point that threatened Republican support.
He said the measure will stick to the GOP’s initial, “targeted” goal of funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through the remainder of Mr. Trump’s presidency, calling that “the best way to get the reconciliation bill moving across the finish line.”
A vote-a-rama in which senators can debate unlimited amendments to the package ahead of a final vote is expected Wednesday or Thursday.
