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Senate Republicans are breaking with President Donald Trump on his new, nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund as concerns over where the money comes from and who gets it ripple through the Capitol.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the $1.78 billion fund earlier this week in a deal struck between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to drop his $10 billion lawsuit. Shortly after, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was grilled by senators on the subject.
“This is an outrageous, unprecedented slush fund that you have set up,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said. “Simple question, will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund?”
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“Anybody in this country will be eligible to apply,” Blanche said.
That concern has driven several Senate Republicans to criticize the fund, given that several people convicted of assaulting police on the Hill, or who have tried to harm the president, could get access to taxpayer dollars.
“Imagine that,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said. ”A fund that is set up to compensate people who assaulted Capitol Police officers and other responding agencies, right? People that had pled guilty to physical acts against the president may actually be able to get compensated. How absurd does that sound coming out of my mouth?”
Senate Republicans are currently trying to ram through a multibillion-dollar package that will fund immigration operations for the remainder of Trump’s presidency and are already grappling with a $1 billion funding request that will go toward security enhancements for his colossal ballroom.
That funding, which was already stripped out by the Senate rules referee, and whether to add restrictions to the DOJ fund, are gumming up the process in the upper chamber.
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Few Republicans are actively supporting the “anti-weaponization” fund. Lawmakers are set to meet with Blanche Thursday morning behind closed doors to learn more about how it works.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., previously said that he was “not a big fan” of the fund and questioned its purpose.
“Our members have very legitimate questions about it, and we’ve had some conversations about, if it’s going to be a feature going forward, what it might look like and how we might make sure that it’s fenced in appropriately,” Thune said ahead of the meeting.
Officers who protected the Hill on Jan. 6 sued to block the fund on Wednesday, but it hasn’t sated the concerns that Republicans have. Some want Congress to get involved.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who Trump successfully worked to oust during his primary election over the weekend, argued that the fund was adding to the nation’s staggering national debt, and that “if there needs to be a settlement, the administration should bring it to Congress to decide.”
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“People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries and paying for gas, not about putting together a $1.8 billion fund for the president and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability,” Cassidy said on X.
But it’s not a unanimous issue shared throughout the Senate GOP. Some, like Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., believe that there have been people “really harmed by the federal government,” and had no issue with setting up a fund to compensate them.
Johnson and a handful of his colleagues were the targets of former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost probe and had their phone records subpoenaed without notice as part of the investigation.
That spurred now-defunct legislation that would have allowed senators targeted in the probe to sue for up to $500,000.
Johnson believed that the five-member panel that would process the claims would prevent criminals and others from getting a piece of the fund.
“I’m assuming they’re not going to provide that type of funding for criminals. I mean, people who really should have been prosecuted, people who committed violence, that type of thing,” Johnson told Fox News Digital. “But, I mean, for the grandma and grandpas that just showed up and you’ve got the DOJ or FBI doing SWAT raids on their farms? Yeah, those people should be compensated.”
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