Trump's Little MAGA Reparations Fund Is Permanently Canceled

Last week, we reported that a federal judge temporarily put the brakes on President Donald Trump’s $1.766 billion woe-is-MAGA reparations fund — or what the Justice Department called the “anti-weaponization fund” — which happened after 35 retired federal judges asked a district judge to open an investigation into the fund and the IRS immunity Trump and his family were granted along with it. Well, now, according to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the administration’s little slush fund is circling the drain and going down the toilet (so, flush fund?) as Trump’s increasingly long list of very public L’s continues.

The Washington Post reports that Republican lawmakers have been urging the White House to abandon its agenda to dole out reparations to whoever his DOJ decides was unfairly prosecuted for anti-MAGA political reasons — as if Trump hasn’t spent his entire second term failing to weaponize lawfare against his own political rivals — and on Monday, the DOJ signaled that it might be doing just that.

On Tuesday, according to the New York Times, Todd Blanche said “he was withdrawing a proposal to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people claiming to be victims of unfair prosecution, amid a revolt among Republicans who saw it as an ethical and political disaster.”

Blanche told members of the House Appropriations Committee, “We’re not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) claimed the White House assured him Monday that it was dropping the fund, after Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told reporters that he has been making it clear to the White House for several days that it should abandon the fund, which he did likely because was already shaping up to be a political disaster ahead of the midterm elections, not because of how clear and unmistakable it is that the whole agenda is deeply corrupt and transparently partisan.

“I do think that the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” Thune told reporters, adding that the administration should also make it clear it will not attempt to resurrect the idea.

From the Post:

The Justice Department statement followed a three-hour meeting at the White House between House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Trump that included a discussion of the fund, according to a person familiar with the meeting, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

A retreat from the fund would mark the latest setback for President Donald Trump, who has uncharacteristically backed away from some of his political initiatives in recent days, including his determination to remake the Kennedy Center and plans for an elaborate concert series to mark the nation’s 250th birthday.

I mean, that’s one way of saying Trump is removing his name from the Kennedy Center and halting plans to close it for so-called renovations because a judge told him he had to, and that he’s talking about canceling his Freedom 250 nonsense because just about every artist who was supposedly booked for it found out it was a Trump event and responded with a resounding, “Oh, hell no!“

Still, Democratic lawmakers want more than just a tentative promise that the fund is gone for good. They want a concrete declaration that it’s canceled and won’t be un-canceled.

“Trump is claiming that the slush fund is dead for now, but Democrats will not stop until it’s well and truly buried,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “It can never see the light of day.”

And apparently, Republicans agree.

More from the Post:

Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) said the Trump administration needs to “say what they actually mean” and “settle it and say we’re setting this whole thing aside.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was looking for more clarity.“It’s pretty clear that the president has to say very explicitly that there’s not going to be a weaponization fund,” Grassley said.

The pressure on Capitol Hill against the fund had been growing on several fronts. Sens. Adam Schiff (D-California), Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) said Monday they would introduce legislation to shut down the fund, hoping to force Republicans to take a difficult vote.

Who would’ve thought that all it would take for a little bipartisan agreement in Congress was Trump finally doing something so stupid that virtually everyone thought it was stupid, including the MAGA sycophants in the GOP?

Welp, if Jan. 6 terrorists had plans to spend that money, it looks like they’re out of luck.

Sad.

Meanwhile, the cancellation of the fund does not mean the end of the IRS shield Trump created for himself and members of his family when initially negotiating the fund.

More from the Times:

The Justice Department is standing by an extraordinary measure giving President Trump, his family and his businesses potentially lucrative protection from I.R.S. investigations, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said on Tuesday.

Mr. Blanche’s remarks about the tax protections came during an appearance in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee, in which he told lawmakers that the Trump administration was abandoning a related plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to pay restitution to people who claimed they were victims of government “weaponization.”

Mr. Blanche said the end of the fund would not affect the separate agreement shielding Mr. Trump from audits of tax returns he and his family had already filed. Both proposals had emerged in recent weeks as part of a settlement of Mr. Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. But now only the measure benefiting the Trumps will survive, Mr. Blanche said.

“Nothing has changed with that,” he said, referring to the tax proposal. “We’re not moving forward with the anti-weaponization fund.”

SEE ALSO:

Trump’s DOJ Sets Up Reparations Fund For Jan 6 Rioters

Trump IRS Settlement Grants Him, Family Immunity On Past Tax Issues

Trump’s Little MAGA Reparations Fund Is Permanently Canceled was originally published on newsone.com