AP Report: Trump reconsiders $1.8 billion ‘anti-arms’ fund as DOJ temporarily suspends it

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is reconsidering whether to move forward with a $1.8 billion fund to compensate his allies, a person familiar with his thinking said Monday, as the Justice Department said it would temporarily pause its implementation to comply with a court order.

The potential withdrawal is an acknowledgment of the legal setbacks the fund has faced since its announcement two weeks ago, as well as a growing political backlash from Republicans concerned about a perceived lack of oversight of money disbursements and the potential for payments to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The Trump administration had defended the $1.776 billion “Anti-Armament Fund,” created to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, as an appropriate corrective measure to offset what officials insist was a weapon of law enforcement under the Biden administration.

Although some Trump supporters — including participants in the Capitol riot — celebrated the fund’s announcement, the reaction from Republicans in Congress was markedly more hostile. The fund was one of the issues the president discussed with House Speaker Mike Johnson, whom he met Monday, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss a private discussion.

READ MORE: Why legal experts say Trump’s new ‘anti-arms’ fund is unprecedented

On Monday, a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking, said Trump was reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund. The Justice Department separately said it would comply with a ruling Friday by a federal judge in Virginia that put the proposed funds on hold pending additional arguments later this month, although it noted it “strongly disagreed” with the ruling.

Lawmakers have raised concerns about a lack of oversight of the money and have pushed the administration to either place limits on the fund or eliminate it altogether. This has particularly complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans left town ten days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said they won’t have the votes to pass the homeland security spending bill until the White House works with them to define the parameters of the fund.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday that he hoped the White House would abandon the fund.

Watch Thune’s remarks Monday in the player above.

“I think the best way to handle this is for the administration to decide to shut it down themselves,” Thune told reporters.

Senators pressed Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche over the fund in a closed-door meeting last month that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas called “one of the most difficult meetings I’ve seen in my entire tenure in the Senate.”

The future of the fund was called into question on Friday by two court decisions.

In Virginia, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema temporarily halted its creation and scheduled a June 12 hearing to debate whether to extend her order barring the government from moving forward with the fund while ongoing litigation challenges it.

The Justice Department said Monday it would respect the ruling, but noted in a statement that “the fund was open to anyone who was so armed, targeted or persecuted, whether Democrat, Republican, conservative, independent or otherwise.”

Separately, the Florida federal judge overseeing Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond to settler critics’ “serious allegations” that the president abandoned his allegations to avoid court scrutiny of an illegal deal. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams gave them until June 12 to respond in writing to the collusion allegations and determine whether the case should be reopened because the court was “the victim of fraud.”

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

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