Top Trump official Stephen Miller went to bat Thursday for the president’s $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that reportedly received a chilly reception from Republican senators.

Miller entertained a few questions from reporters stationed outside the White House on Thursday afternoon. One asked, “Republicans don’t seem to be interested in the $1.8 billion fund. That [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune was the sticking point today up on Capitol Hill. Is there anyone that the president is making calls to, reaching out to? It’s not going to be on his desk by June 1, which I think is a deadline he had said earlier.”

“Well, that’s a good closing question only because it allows me to say this, which is that, we lived through four years of — more than four years, actually — but I’ll just say four years in this case — of unimaginable weaponization of the federal government against innocent people,” Miller said.

“We’ve have had so many — it really goes back, I would say, further, but — so many lives destroyed. So many livelihoods ruined. So many people who were deprived of their fundamental rights and freedoms as American citizens. And this sum is just a small measure of the justice that they’re owed.”

The DOJ sent a memo with talking points on the Anti-Weaponization Fund to Republican senators before Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Thune and his caucus. They discussed management of the fund set up after Trump reached a settlement to drop his $10 billion suit against the IRS. Blanche is expected to appoint five commissioners to consider the pleas of those who claim they’ve been “victimized” by the federal government, including Jan. 6 rioters.

CNN’s Manu Raju reported after the meeting, “Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is facing stiff resistance over the $1.8 billlion [sic] in tense Senate GOP meeting, I’m told. Rs also warn that a major immigration enforcement/reconcilation [sic] bill they want to pass could be derailed with the issue hovering.”

Raju continued, “The fund is complicating Thune’s path to 50 votes on the reconciliation bill. Rs want to rein it in,” adding, “Am told most senators voiced opposition to the fund — hardly any came to its defense. Lot of unhappy Rs about the $1.8B fund.”

Shortly after the meeting, Punchbowl News reporter Jake Sherman confirmed that Thune sent his fellow senators home for recess until June.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

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