President Donald Trump defended his $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund on Friday, despite Republican uproar.
“I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced Anti-Weaponization Fund to go forward,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I could have settled my case, including the illegal release of my Tax Returns and the equally illegal BREAK IN of Mar-a-Lago, for an absolute fortune. Instead, I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!”
The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday as part of its settlement with Trump, his older sons Eric and Donald Jr., and the Trump Organization after they agreed to drop their $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
The Trumps sued the IRS in January after an agency employee leaked their 2019 and 2020 tax returns.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was also Trump’s personal attorney, has proposed that the anti-weaponization fund be paid for by the DOJ’s own judgment fund, which is appropriated by Congress to settle cases.
Claims, decided by a panel of commissioners, a majority of whom would be appointed by Blanche, would not be processed after December 2028, one month before the end of Trump’s second administration.
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The initiative has been criticized by Republicans concerned not only about the public perception of spending taxpayers’ money on the fund amid economic concerns, but also about the administration declining to make people accused or convicted of assaulting law enforcement officials during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot ineligible.
The Republican pushback reached a climax on Thursday when a GOP meeting at the White House to discuss a $70 billion party-line immigration bill was postponed in response to the fund, in addition to a White House-Secret Service request for $1 billion for security upgrades, including for the president’s ballroom project.