{"id":1753,"date":"2026-06-02T05:33:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1753"},"modified":"2026-06-02T05:33:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:33:21","slug":"trump-administration-pauses-1-8b-fund-amid-legal-fierce-political-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1753","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration pauses $1.8B fund amid legal, fierce political backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong>  | President Donald Trump is reconsidering whether to move forward with a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate his allies, a person familiar with his thinking said Monday, as the Justice Department also said it would temporarily pause the program\u2019s implementation in compliance with a court order.<\/p>\n<p>The potential retreat is a nod to the legal setbacks the fund has encountered since it was announced two weeks ago and a recognition of the mounting political backlash from Republicans concerned by a lack of oversight of the money disbursement and the possibility of payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration had defended the $1.776 billion \u201cAnti-Weaponization Fund,\u201d established to resolve Trump\u2019s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, as an appropriate corrective measure for what officials insist was weaponized law enforcement during the Biden administration.<\/p>\n<p>But while some Trump supporters \u2014 including participants in the Capitol riot \u2014 celebrated the announcement of the fund, the reaction among Republicans in Congress has been decidedly more hostile. The outrage came to a head last month at a closed-door meeting between senators and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas described on a recent episode of his podcast as \u201cone of the roughest meetings I\u2019ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The furor has especially complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump\u2019s immigration enforcement agencies after Democrats said they would offer amendments to scrap or scale back the judgement fund.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said they won\u2019t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the fund. Many have pushed the administration to impose limits or cancel the idea altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Amid the backlash, a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the president\u2019s thinking, said Monday that Trump was reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund. The Justice Department separately said Monday that it would comply with a judge\u2019s order from Friday that temporarily halted implementation of the fund pending additional arguments later in the month.<\/p>\n<p>But Republicans said they were still seeking a more explicit commitment that the fund would be pulled back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey need to say what they actually mean,\u201d said Republican Sen. Jim Lankford. \u201cThey need to say, \u2018We\u2019re setting this whole thing aside.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday that he hoped the White House would move to drop the fund. He said he wasn\u2019t sure if the immigration spending bill would move this week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,\u201d Thune told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>He said any additional statements from the administration would be helpful, but: \u201cI think the statement they made effectively shuts it down. We\u2019ll find out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that if the settlement is \u201ccompletely pulled, then I\u2019m satisfied. But I haven\u2019t heard anybody say that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was not immediately clear whether the retreat being signaled on the fund Monday indicated that the administration would also backtrack on another element of the IRS settlement \u2014 a commitment by the government to abandon any probes of Trump, his family and other associates over whether they\u2019ve paid their fair share of taxes.<\/p>\n<p>The fund was dealt a pair of legal blows on Friday, including an order by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema that temporarily barred it from being implemented. The judge scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend her order. The Justice Department statement did not say whether the government intended to continue to make legal arguments for the fund.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThe Department will abide by the Court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n<p>Separately, the federal judge in Florida overseeing Trump\u2019s lawsuit against the IRS ordered Trump\u2019s attorneys on Friday to respond to \u201cgrievous allegations\u201d by settlement critics that the president abandoned his claims to avoid the court\u2019s scrutiny of an illegal deal. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams gave them until June 12 to respond in writing to allegations of collusion and whether the case should be reopened because the court was the \u201cvictim of a fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1747\">Girls Lacrosse: 2026 Class 5A All-South League teams<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1749\">Girls Lacrosse: 2026 All-Class 5A East League teams<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1751\">Florida sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, claiming company concealed serious risks of ChatGPT<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON | President Donald Trump is reconsidering whether to move forward with a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate his allies, a person familiar with his thinking said Monday, as the Justice Department also said it would temporarily pause the program\u2019s implementation in compliance with a court order. The potential retreat is a nod to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1290,252,2747,2748,808,1555],"class_list":["post-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","tag-justice-department","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-republican-sen-jim-lankford","tag-republican-sen-ted-cruz","tag-senate-majority-leader-john-thune","tag-todd-blanche"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Trump administration pauses $1.8B fund amid legal, fierce political backlash - Denver Moving Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1753\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump administration pauses $1.8B fund amid legal, fierce political backlash - Denver Moving Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON | President Donald Trump is reconsidering whether to move forward with a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate his allies, a person familiar with his thinking said Monday, as the Justice Department also said it would temporarily pause the program\u2019s implementation in compliance with a court order. 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