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Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund is — maybe — done for.
What’s happening? On Monday, Axios reported that the Trump administration planned to drop its “anti-weaponization” fund — nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money set aside for Trump to dole out to whoever he and the fund’s board choose, free of supervision — amid legal challenges and growing Republican backlash.
The fund, announced in mid-May, was the product of a “settlement” between Trump and his own government over a $10 billion lawsuit Trump had brought against the IRS. A long list of Trump allies, including January 6 rioters, could have stood to receive millions from the fund.
What’s the context? On Friday, a federal district judge in Virginia temporarily blocked Trump’s fund from disbursing any money or taking any other actions until at least late next week, while another in Florida ordered Trump’s personal lawyers to justify the settlement reached with the Justice Department, raising the possibility that it could have been fraudulent.
What’s the big picture? It’s a little unclear what the fund’s exact status is, as of this writing; as one source told Axios on Monday, “The president likes the fund. … So nothing is final until it’s final.” Other reporters have pointed out that the court ruling that the Justice Department has promised to abide by is only temporary.
But the fund has also become toxic with some of the Republican senators whose votes Trump needs to advance a second reconciliation bill, enough so that concern about the fund delayed votes originally planned for last month. As Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman points out, when the bill does move forward, it could also include language explicitly blocking the fund.
In other words, there are still avenues Trump could pursue to try to bring back the fund. But all things considered, this looks like an effort by DOJ to save face and back away from the issue permanently.
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