Inside 'brazen' Trump's devious scheme to keep $1.7 billion slush fund alive

After an angry outcry on both the left and the right, the Trump administration's $1.7 billion "anti-weaponization fund" was reportedly discontinued. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was "not moving forward with the fund, period. But according to Zeteo reporters Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez, MAGA Republicans are quietly finding ways to keep the fund alive.

Suebsaeng and Perez report that "three sources familiar with the situation tell Zeteo" that "senior Trump officials" have been working on "alternate plans for delivering public funds to the president's allies — even if the new 'fund'" doesn't "technically exist on paper."

"According to two of the sources," the Zeteo journalists explain, "Trump himself had a succinct reply, when the topic of political or legal roadblocks to his slush fund came up in recent conversations with close advisers: 'Just do it anyway.' The president, the sources add, was referring to options he'd been briefed on by administration officials and Republican allies, who laid out how the Trump-Vance administration could still potentially make generous payments to numerous would-be fund applicants — even if the new, specific initiative stays tied up in court challenges."

The Trump administration said that the "anti-weaponization fund" was designed to compensate Americans it claims were unfairly targeted by former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland during the Biden administration. But critics countered that the fund, which they attacked as a "slush fund," could force U.S. taxpayers to give money to rioters who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

"The fund was created out of one of President Trump's most brazen acts of corruption yet, in an administration already overflowing with titanic, unprecedented levels of lawlessness and cash grabs," Suebsaeng and Perez note. "Trump and his family business empire sued the IRS for $10 billion over a leak of the president's tax returns that occurred during his first term in the White House. As a federal judge prepared to review whether it was kosher for Trump to sue his own administration, since the officials in it report to him, the Justice Department — which functions as an arm of the Trump White House — short-circuited that discussion by announcing a settlement."

The Zeteo reporters add, "In ending the suit, Trump and DOJ agreed to launch a nearly $1.8 billion dollar so-called 'anti-weaponization' fund."

According to Suebsaeng and Perez, one of Zeteo's sources "describes an internal Trump administration memo…. that outlined how Democratic lawmakers have severely limited options for trying to stop the Trump Justice Department from settling lawsuits or Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) claims brought by MAGA diehards, January 6 rioters, or Trump supporters, and then paying out those settlements out of the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund — an unlimited fund established by Congress so the government can pay settlements and judgments."

That source, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Zeteo, "You never needed a $1.8 billion fund. Different administrations make these payments all the time…. You can get past $1.8 billion pretty fast. The Judgment Fund is unlimited, and there's no law saying you can’t hit that number."

Suebsaeng and Perez report, "Indeed, the Trump administration views rewarding the president's disgraced comrades as such a priority that even when top appointees claim the fund has been killed, they still emphatically signal to MAGA World: You can still get your money, guys…. But whatever form it takes, Trump's nearly $2 billion dollar slush fund, along with the administration's plans to keep it going, are emblematic of the rampant lawlessness and authoritarian corruption of the second Trump presidency."