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Trump Admin Scrapping $1.8B Fund 06/03 06:13
The Trump administration is scrapping plans for a $1.8 billion fund that
would have compensated allies of the Republican president, the Justice
Department's top official said Tuesday in retreating from a program that faced
a fierce political backlash that had threatened to stall key elements of the
White House agenda.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Trump administration is scrapping plans for a $1.8
billion fund that would have compensated allies of the Republican president,
the Justice Department's top official said Tuesday in retreating from a program
that faced a fierce political backlash that had threatened to stall key
elements of the White House agenda.
"We are not moving forward with the fund, period," Acting Attorney General
Todd Blanche said in response to questions at a House hearing on the Justice
Department budget.
"Not moving forward ever?" asked Rep. Grace Meng, a New York Democrat.
"Correct," Blanche answered.
The blunt declaration marked an extraordinary, and rare, Trump
administration turnabout in the face of mounting political opposition to a fund
that officials said was meant to compensate people who believe they have been
improperly targeted by the criminal justice system. Since the establishment of
the fund two weeks ago, it's been paused by a judge and lambasted by Democrats
and Republicans alike who said they were troubled by a lack of oversight and
the potential for payouts to participants in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at
the U.S. Capitol.
The fund drew concerns even from Republicans
The furor especially complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans
defiantly left town nearly two weeks ago without passing legislation to fund
President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agencies after Democrats said
they would offer amendments to scrap or scale back the compensation fund.
Furious, Senate Republicans jettisoned White House security money from the
bill and made clear they would not pass the legislation at all unless the
administration made major changes to the plan. They had sought reassurances
from Blanche before moving forward.
The $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" was established last month to
resolve Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of
his tax returns. The Justice Department had said it was an appropriate measure
to correct what officials have insisted was the weaponization of federal law
enforcement during the Biden administration, when Trump faced criminal charges
and several of his allies were investigated and prosecuted.
The administration had said that anyone who felt unfairly persecuted could
apply for compensation regardless of political affiliation, but Blanche's
refusal to publicly foreclose the possibility that people convicted of crimes
of violence in the Jan. 6 riot could get payouts alarmed lawmakers. A
five-member commission was to have been responsible for deciding on the
payouts, though no commissioners had yet been named and the criteria for
eligibility remained unclear.
Blanche made clear Tuesday that he stood behind the rationale for the fund
even as he was abandoning its implementation, saying: "This Department of
Justice, unfortunately, was weaponized against many, many Americans, and we're
trying every day to to fix it. And we've made a lot of progress, but we have a
lot more to do."
Merrick Garland, the attorney general under President Joe Biden, has denied
allegations of politicization and said his decisions followed the facts, the
evidence and the law. The Justice Department under his leadership investigated
prominent Democrats too, most notably by appointing a special counsel to
investigate Biden's handling of classified information and another special
counsel who brought tax and gun charges against Biden's son Hunter.
As part of the same deal to resolve the tax lawsuit, the IRS agreed to drop
any pending probes of Trump over whether he's paid his fair share of taxes.
Pressed over whether it was also abandoning that part of the deal, Blanche said
"nothing has changed with that," and said the administration was only backing
away from plans to create the $1.8 billion fund.
The administration had earlier hinted at a retreat
Signs of the retreat surfaced Monday when a person familiar with the matter
told The Associated Press that the Republican president was reconsidering
whether to move forward with the fund. The Justice Department said separately
it would comply with a Virginia court temporarily blocking the fund,
effectively agreeing to pause the plan for at least several weeks.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that he hoped the White House
would move to drop the fund, telling reporters, "I do think the best way to
handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves."
The hearing Tuesday before a House Appropriations subcommittee was scheduled
for discussion of the Justice Department's budget, but lawmakers quickly
focused their questioning on the fund.
"This administration has engaged in what are perhaps the most brazen acts of
flagrant corruption I've ever seen," Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from
Connecticut, said before Blanche announced the abandonment of the fund. "And
you are at the center of many of them, Mr. Blanche."
She called the fund "a corrupt payout scheme for the president and his
political allies. It is shameful."
Courts reacted coolly to the fund
The Justice Department's efforts to move forward with the fund were also
facing headwinds in the courts after several lawsuits filed by Trump critics,
including a fired Jan. 6 prosecutor and two police officers who helped defend
the Capitol.
On Friday, a federal judge in Virginia halted the fund's formation and any
potential payouts for at least two weeks and scheduled a June 12 hearing for
arguments on whether to extend her order. Separately, the judge in Florida
overseeing Trump's lawsuit against the IRS ordered the president's attorneys to
respond to "grievous allegations" by settlement critics that Trump abandoned
his claims to avoid the court's scrutiny of an illegal deal.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward -- which brought one
of the lawsuits -- said of Blanche's comments Tuesday, "If you can say it on
TV, you should say it in court."
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