{"id":139,"date":"2026-06-05T19:10:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=139"},"modified":"2026-06-05T19:10:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:10:44","slug":"is-trumps-anti-weaponization-slush-fund-dead-or-is-it-undead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=139","title":{"rendered":"Is Trump\u2019s \u201cAnti-Weaponization\u201d Slush Fund Dead? Or Is It Undead?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Trump administration has abandoned its plan to create an \u201cAnti-Weaponization Fund\u201d that would funnel nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars into the hands of the president\u2019s political allies. Or has it?<\/p>\n

Read more Lawfare No Bull: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche Testifies on DOJ\u2019s Anti-Weaponization Fund<\/a><\/p>\n

After announcing the fund\u2019s creation on May 18 as a part of a settlement agreement resolving Trump and his sons\u2019 lawsuit against his own IRS, the Justice Department abruptly reversed course in the face of political and legal backlash. \u201cWe\u2019re not moving forward with the fund, period,\u201d Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on June 2.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t mistake retreat for surrender. The administration scrapped the fund in characteristically shifty fashion, leaving open the question of whether it is truly dead or merely on pause. At the hearing, Blanche refused members\u2019 entreaties to issue a written order rescinding the program. Even that would seem not to suffice, because the settlement agreement between the government and the Trumps, which obligates the attorney general to establish the fund, provides in Section VIII that it \u201cmay be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

More importantly, the fate of the fund itself may be beside the point. Existing law already provides the Justice Department with the tools it needs to funnel taxpayer money to many of the same beneficiaries. In the wake of the fund\u2019s alleged demise, will the administration use those tools to accomplish its objectives by other means? And, if so, can Congress or the courts do anything to stop it?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s dig in. (Our May 20 piece, \u201cThe President Who Sued Himself,\u201d covered the fund\u2019s backstory in great detail. We will link back to that piece below where it is helpful.)<\/p>\n

Why Did the Justice Department Scrap the Anti-Weaponization Fund?\u00a0<\/strong>Is It Really Dead?<\/strong><\/p>\n

During his appearance before the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, Blanche did not explain\u2014and no committee member asked\u2014why the Justice Department reversed course on its plans for the fund. But the answer is hardly a mystery. The fund\u2019s purported demise came in the wake of bipartisan political blowback and a pair of court orders that left the Justice Department scrambling to save face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The political backlash had been swift. Democrats in Congress denounced the fund\u00a0as an unlawful slush fund designed to reward Trump\u2019s political allies. But even Republicans, in a rare show of resistance to the administration\u2019s priorities, questioned the propriety of the scheme. Those concerns intensified after Blanche, during a May 19 appearance before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, refused to say whether individuals convicted of assaulting police officers on Jan. 6 would be barred from compensation. Days later, Senate Republicans reportedly blasted Blanche in a closed-door meeting about the fund, which Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) described as \u201cone of the roughest meetings I\u2019ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.\u201d The uproar ultimately stalled the budget reconciliation process for the administration\u2019s immigration enforcement operations, with some Republicans refusing to advance the broader package unless the administration scrapped the fund.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, litigants wasted little time seeking to halt the fund. Within days of Blanche\u2019s order establishing the scheme, several lawsuits challenging its legality were filed in federal courts in Virginia and Washington, D.C. The most promising of these suits is likely the one on behalf of several individuals and entities pressing a wide variety of reasons why the fund is unlawful (and asserting several different claims as to standing, arguably the greatest hurdle\u00a0in the case). That suit led U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema , temporarily halting the program while the parties briefed the question of whether she should order a longer-term block. (A hearing is set for .)<\/p>\n

Also on May 29, in the Southern District of Florida, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams , the case that had spawned the fund in the first place. The turnabout followed , who urged Judge Williams to revive the case she had previously closed in order to investigate whether the \u201ccollusive\u201d litigation between Trump and his own government amounted to a \u201cfraud on the court.\u201d In , Judge Williams said that she is empowered to investigate \u201cserious misconduct\u201d under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which permits courts to impose sanctions if an attorney advocates a frivolous position or files litigation for an improper purpose. She ordered Trump\u2019s attorneys to respond to the allegations of misconduct by June 12.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, on June 1\u2014just one day before Blanche\u2019s scheduled appearance before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee\u2014reports surfaced that the Trump administration planned to scrap the fund. Later that day, the Justice Department put out a statement that at first blush seemed to confirm as much, citing Judge Brinkema\u2019s injunction as the reason the department would not proceed. But the statement was slippery. It described Brinkema\u2019s order as prohibiting implementation of the fund under any circumstances, omitting that her injunction was temporary and set to expire in roughly two weeks. And it did not resolve whether the fund was truly dead or merely paused while the litigation ran its course.<\/p>\n

Blanche appeared to answer that question the following day, telling the committee, without elaborating, that the Justice Department was \u201cnot moving forward with the fund, period.\u201d But in a podcast released on June 3, Trump muddied the waters. Asked whether he was dropping the fund, he said: \u201cNo, a court ruled against it.\u201d And hours later, in the Oval Office, asked why<\/em> he was dropping it, Trump said that \u201ca radical left judge ruled against it, and we\u2019ll see how that all works out.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of which leaves open the possibility that the Justice Department could reverse course at a later date\u2014say, after the midterm elections.<\/p>\n

If the Fund Is Actually Dead, Could Trump Still Pay\u00a0<\/strong>His Political Allies with Taxpayer Money?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. In fact, he\u2019s been doing so for the past year even without a dedicated slush fund.<\/p>\n

Since June 2025, Trump has paid out at least $8.6 million to the sort of people who MAGA talks about when it talks about weaponization. The administration has even used the w-word to justify the payouts. Asked about the settlements, a Department of Justice spokesperson told the Washington Post that \u201cit was our predecessors who weaponized the Justice Department against President Trump\u2019s allies\u201d and that settlements were necessary because \u201c[t]he weaponization of the Department of Justice against ordinary Americans during the Biden-Garland era stands as a shameful stain on the department\u2019s history.\u201d Most of the payments resolved claims filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA); below are the ones of which we are aware:<\/p>\n