Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization fund’ is stalled, and some allies are urging him to scrap it entirely

By Kaitlan Collins, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” is stalled, with some allies urging the White House to scrap it altogether amid an unusually intense backlash from multiple Senate Republicans, sources familiar with the matter said.

It remains to be seen whether the president will agree to end the fund, but the level of pushback — in public and private — is unusual. Trump has defended the fund and feels he has an iron grip on his party, especially after recent primaries where his political foes were ousted from their jobs on Capitol Hill.

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment. The urging of the White House to kill the fund was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The fund — which was created to settle an unprecedented lawsuit Trump brought against the Internal Revenue Service over the unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns years ago — has been controversial from the start. It was ostensibly meant to compensate people who believe they were wronged by the Justice Department in President Joe Biden’s term, but critics have said it amounts to a slush fund to pay out Trump’s allies. Even people who assaulted police during the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, are eligible for payouts, though acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has noted their conduct would be considered by the five-person commission that administers the fund.

On Friday, the fund was dealt two blows in court. First, a federal judge in Virginia temporarily blocked the administration with moving ahead on plans for it, setting a June 12 hearing to hear arguments over whether she should make the pause last longer.

Then, a different federal judge who was overseeing Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service ordered him to respond to claims that he committed “fraud” on the court warranting an inquiry into potential wrongdoing by both sides.

Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that sought to block the payments, said the organization was “really pleased to see that the judge sees the urgency in this.”

“It’s helpful that the judge saw the urgency and made it clear … by ordering that the administration not move anything from the fund, put money in the fund, pay payments out of the fund, until the court can hear the merits of our case,” Perryman told CNN’s Paula Reid on Saturday.

The fund is likely to continue upending discussions over legislation on the president’s immigration priorities when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill next week. Last week, senators left Washington for their Memorial Day recess without taking action on the that legislation, fearful that, because of controversy over the fund, they could not muster 50 votes needed to pass a bill that would provide tens of billions of dollars to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol. Trump had demanded the package land on his desk by June 1.

At the time, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wasn’t given a heads-up on the fund and that it “would have been nice” if he had. Others were unsparing in their criticism.

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick,” Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.