Trump administration has scrapped $1.8bn ‘anti-weaponisation fund’

The administration of US President Donald Trump is abandoning the president’s nearly $1.8bn “anti-weaponisation” fund, United States Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said, on the heels of a widespread political backlash and legal setbacks.

“We are not moving forward with the fund,” Blanche told lawmakers on Tuesday, after an intense and rare backlash from Republican senators. “Period.”

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The US Department of Justice’s agreement with President Trump to bar future audits into his or his family’s past tax records will remain in place, Blanche told lawmakers.

The blunt declaration marked an extraordinary, and rare, turnabout for a Trump Justice Department that just two weeks ago had pronounced the fund as an appropriate measure to make up for what officials insist was weaponised law enforcement during former President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration.

The fund has since been paused by a judge and lambasted by both Democrats and Republicans alike.

Furious senators have faced an impasse with Trump over a $72bn bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol operations.

Congressional leaders had questioned whether they could pass the bill if the fund was not killed, and a person familiar with the White House’s thinking said Blanche’s future hinged on his ability to address those concerns.

The fund emerged from a legal settlement between Trump and the Justice Department to resolve an unprecedented $10bn lawsuit against the IRS over the alleged mishandling of his tax records.

The $1.776bn fund was meant to pay people who said they had been the subject of government abuse, and Blanche angered senators last month when he would not commit to barring people who assaulted police officers during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot from receiving funds.

White House officials spent much of Monday calling lawmakers to assure them there would be no payouts after the Republican revolt, said two sources familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity.

That assurance had done little to quiet Republican demands ahead of Blanche’s House subcommittee hearing Tuesday afternoon, where lawmakers pressed for a definitive promise that the fund is dead.

The White House referred questions on Blanche’s comments to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Monday, the department said it would abide by a court order that temporarily paused the fund until June 12 but did not say what that meant for the fund permanently.

Trump broke his public silence on the fund’s future on Tuesday afternoon, posting a link to a Substack titled, “The Truth the Media Won’t Tell You About the Anti-Weaponization Fund”. The post praised Trump for giving money to those who say they have been abused by the government and criticised the media and Democrats for calling it a slush fund.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he wants the bill to be narrowly focused on immigration enforcement and not on Trump’s other priorities, keeping out a provision that would have allowed spending $1bn to secure a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the White House grounds that Trump wants.

At the Tuesday hearing, Democratic lawmakers pressed Blanche to commit to abandoning the fund in writing, which he declined to do.

Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera wp:paragraph