Senate Republicans say the Trump administration’s promise to “abide by” a court order blocking its controversial $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund does not go far enough, demanding assurances the program will be permanently scrapped.
“The only thing that’s going to solve this problem, to get immigration funded and law enforced, is for the president to do away with the weaponization fund,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said.
The Justice Department said on Monday it would “abide by” a federal court order pausing creation and operation of the fund while litigation proceeds. But Republicans indicated the administration’s temporary retreat has done little to ease concerns that the fund could be revived later.
“Is it going to be completely eliminated?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) asked. “That’s the question that I have. That would make it easier, if it’s completely gone.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) similarly said the DOJ announcement leaves unresolved questions.
“I think it needs more investigation, and I think that we’re going to have a more robust discussion about it [on Tuesday],” said Capito, a member of the GOP leadership. “I think it still has a whole lot of questions.”
A Senate leadership aide told the Washington Examiner that leadership views the DOJ’s statement as a walk-back of the fund and an acknowledgment by the administration that it is essentially unworkable among Senate Republicans.
Uproar over the fund’s creation, in addition to the inclusion of money for White House security upgrades, had already once derailed Republican leadership’s plans to pass a GOP-led reconciliation bill funding immigration enforcement.
Lawmakers note, however, that the judge’s ruling only halted the operation of the fund for two weeks, until June 12, when the next court hearing on the matter is scheduled.
“Just saying we’re going to follow the order doesn’t tell me about their position on the weaponization fund,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said. “Because of the weaponization fund and other issues, right now, the reconciliation bill and the process surrounding it looks like a broken arm with the bone sticking out.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who lost a primary last month to a Trump-backed challenger, said he was in favor of Congress passing legislation to explicitly shut down the fund.
Republican criticism of the fund hit a fever pitch on May 21 after a group of GOP senators met with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, ultimately leading Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to postpone consideration of a tax and spending bill.
A senior GOP aide told the Washington Examiner at the time that Blanche’s briefing had failed to assuage GOP senators’ concerns, and Republicans further soured over the White House’s official guidance on who could be compensated by the fund, including lawmakers whose cellphone data had been subpoenaed during Biden-era investigations.
In the lead-up to the DOJ’s statement, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had discussed the fund earlier on Monday during a meeting at the White House.
“Look, I think the president really liked this idea, but he also doesn’t want to rock the boat too much. Speaker Johnson made a compelling case for slowing down here,” one senior administration official told the Washington Examiner. “Ultimately, it’s up to President Trump which way to proceed.”
Thune indicated Monday afternoon that he had also made his “views clear on the subject” directly to the White House and that he was not in favor of advancing additional funding for immigration operations or the president’s White House ballroom project without specific language blocking the future application of Trump’s lawfare fund.
Three Trump administration officials could not say whether Monday’s action indicated that the president was dropping the issue entirely or simply “buying time,” as one aide characterized it, before moving forward with some variation of his original plan, once the legal challenges to the fund run their course.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who has been critical of the fund, told the Washington Examiner in a text message that unless the administration successfully appeals the court’s ruling, the fund is “dead.”
TRUMP RETREATS FROM ANTI-WEAPONIZATION FUND IN RARE SETBACK AS GOP PUSHES BUDGET BILL
“The structure of agreement did not make sense,” Bacon wrote. “The complainant is the boss of the defendant, so the President’s team was negotiating with itself over tax dollars. It doesn’t pass the smell test.”
Still, the statement published by the Justice Department notably said that the administration would abide by Friday’s ruling from a federal judge, which paused disbursement of any monies from the fund until the legal challenges to the fund itself were resolved, and did not say whether the president planned to take up the fund again in the future.