4 days ago

President Donald Trump's plan to hand out $1.8bn (£1.3bn) in taxpayer funding to political allies lasted all of two weeks before his Department of Justice (DOJ) abandoned the idea amid an intense backlash from Republicans in Congress.

The department's decision to officially end the "anti-weaponisation" fund on Tuesday followed a revolt within Trump's own party. Republicans threatened to derail a critical immigration bill if the administration didn't drop the plan to give public funds to Trump supporters - including, potentially, rioters who participated in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Republican lawmakers and Trump allies viewed the controversy as an unforced error by Trump in a moment when the president and his party can least afford one.

"This was a total self-inflicted wound and completely unnecessary," said a former Trump adviser who asked not to be named to speak candidly.

"It speaks to the president's myopic view sometimes," the source added. "He's going to do what he wants to do regardless of whether it hurts Republicans."

Trump is grappling with an unpopular war in Iran, high gas prices at home and a low approval rating that could drag down Republicans in the midterm elections.

The fund, part of a settlement over a lawsuit Trump dropped against the IRS, would have paid people the administration decided were unjustly targeted by the Biden administration.

It also banned current tax audits of Trump and his family and businesses, a provision Republicans and Democrats criticised as corrupt. The administration argued the fund was needed to "make whole" Americans wrongly prosecuted in the past and insisted anyone was eligible for payouts, including Democrats.

But administration officials had refused to rule out paying Jan 6 rioters. And on Tuesday, Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said the provision shielding Trump and his family from tax audits would remain in place, further angering Republicans who said it should be scrapped.

The firestorm over the fund was the latest example of a trend taking shape in Trump's second term - the willingness of some Republicans to push back when they feel the president's attempts to expand his power, reward allies and punish political opponents have gone too far.

They have taken on Trump multiple times since he returned to office, a sign the president does not have an ironclad grip on his party in his second term.

Several Senate Republicans joined Democrats in passing a war powers resolution last month to limit the length of the conflict with Iran. (A similar resolution still has not passed the House, and it's unclear if the measures would force Trump's hand on Iran). Last year, in another blow to Trump, Republicans voted to force the Justice Department to release files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The White House sought to contain Republican anger over the Epstein scandal over a period of months before Trump finally bowed to pressure and agreed to release the files. In this case, the Republican condemnation of the DOJ fund was swift and appeared to catch Trump and his top aides off guard.

Senate Republicans criticised the fund in a contentious private meeting on 21 May with Blanche, two days after it was announced. Republicans were "blasting the attorney general," Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said the day after the meeting on his podcast Verdict.

"There were multiple senators yelling at the attorney general, saying this feels like self-dealing," Cruz said.

The pressure campaign from Republicans to abandon the fund only increased from there.

Republicans stalled progress on legislation to fund US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), sending Trump a message that this planned fund could unravel a long-delayed spending plan for two key immigration agencies. When lawmakers returned to Washington this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune urged the administration to end its plans for the fund.

"The best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves," Thune told reporters at the Capitol on Monday.

The mounting Republican opposition came as Democrats vowed to hold up the immigration bill over the fund, and as several groups filed lawsuits in court to block the programme.

It was a rare - but of late increasingly frequent - moment of bipartisan anger in Washington directed at Trump. The outrage from Democrats was not a surprise, as the party has opposed Trump at nearly every turn in his second term. But among Republicans, who have largely been stalwart supporters of the president regardless of controversy, few rushed to defend him in public.

The uproar also sparked another test for the courts, where numerous legal battles have played out over Trump's expansion of executive power since he returned to power. In a ruling on Friday, a federal judge ordered the justice department to suspend the fund to allow for a lawsuit against it to move forward.

The justice department on Monday said it was temporarily suspending the compensation scheme, citing the court decision. But critics, including some Republicans, demanded the administration go further and make clear it was giving up on the idea altogether. Blanche finally pulled the plug on Tuesday, telling House lawmakers: "We're not moving forward with the fund."

But that likely isn't the end of the saga. Much as the administration may want to move on, the issue won't disappear anytime soon. Blanche also told lawmakers he wasn't "committing to putting anything in writing", a sign some interpreted as leaving the door open to return to the issue in the future. And even before Blanche's announcement, critics on Tuesday vowed to press forward with legal challenges.

"Litigation provides a safeguard to make sure" Trump doesn't revive the idea, said Norm Eisen, the co-founder of the Democracy Defenders Fund, a group representing plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits against the administration.

Democrats and Republicans have also vowed to introduce amendments to the immigration bill that would prevent presidents from using taxpayer dollars to reward political allies.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina is one of them. "The only way that you're going to just end this two-week drama is to end [the fund]," Tillis, who is retiring at the end of this term, told reporters on Tuesday.

The issue has already become a flashpoint on the left and will surely feature in Democratic campaign ads against Trump this fall ahead of the crucial midterm elections.

On Tuesday evening, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the chamber's top Democrat, said the administration's promise to end the fund was not enough.

"Blanche and Trump's words are worthless," Schumer said in a social media post. "The only way to stop Trump's nearly $2 billion MAGA slush fund and his blank check to commit tax fraud is to abolish it by law - permanently."

He added: "Senate Democrats will force a vote on the floor to end Trump's corrupt scheme for good."

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