The Trump administration is dropping the creation of a $1.8 billion so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” after the White House faced intense backlash from both sides of the aisle.
The Justice Department announced the fund last month as part of a deal in which President Donald Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over leaked tax documents.
But it announced on Monday that it would not proceed with the fund after it was temporarily blocked by the courts.
The administration said the fund would be used for those who claimed to have been unfairly targeted by the federal government, but critics sounded the alarm that it would be used to pay out rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and assaulted police officers.
The Justice Department indicated it would not proceed with creating the fund in a statement on Monday to the Daily Beast.
“The Department of Justice disagrees strongly with the decision on the Anti-Weaponization Fund put forth by the United States District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, wherein the Court stated that, under no circumstances, may the Department of Justice proceed with the Anti-Weaponization Fund recently established in order to make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to so many people. This Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise. The Department will abide by the Court’s ruling,” a spokesperson said.
The administration’s plan to drop the fund was first reported by Axios. Two senior administration officials told the publication that the administration was abandoning the plan just before the Justice Department made it official, with one calling it “dead for now.”
The White House pointed to the Justice Department’s statement when asked for comment.
The president faced pushback over the fund from some Republican members of Congress, who have opposed its creation and threatened to block Trump’s priorities unless it was blocked.
GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick even introduced legislation to block the use of taxpayer dollars to create the fund before the Memorial Day recess. The opposition keeps mounting as members return to Washington, D.C. this week.
“I do think that the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Monday.
Democrats have vowed to force votes to block the creation of such a fund in the future, even as the Justice Department announced it will comply with the court order.
It comes after the fund faced two setbacks in court. Last week, a federal judge in Virginia temporarily halted the creation of the fund to pay out those claiming to have been politically targeted for two weeks after it was challenged by a group of people and entities.
Just hours later, a federal judge in Miami reopened the president’s $10 billion lawsuit with the IRS. Trump’s abandonment of the lawsuit paved the way for the settlement agreement that created the fund.
Judge Kathleen Williams ordered an investigation into the settlement amid accusations it was a “deception” and gave the administration two weeks to address “charges of collusion” and “question of whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the ‘victim of a fraud.’”
In a separate move, the Justice Department also revealed right after initially announcing the creation of the fund that the IRS was blocked from auditing the president and members of his family as part of the deal after Trump pulled his lawsuit.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment on whether the president’s tax amnesty remains in place even as the “Anti-Weaponization Fund’ has been put on pause.
