Senate Republicans – The Senate voted down early attempts to rein in President Donald Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” leaving the controversial settlement intact as lawmakers advanced a $70 billion immigration enforcement bill.
WASHINGTON — For a few hours on Thursday, it looked as if the Senate might actually force a fight over President Donald Trump’s rioter “slush fund” before the chamber barreled ahead with immigration enforcement money.
Instead. the first attempts to outlaw or redirect the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” collapsed in votes that stretched across party lines — and ended with Senate Republicans using a budget-driven path to move a $70 billion bill early Friday. even as Democrats pressed to cut off the fund tied to the president’s past tax-return lawsuit.
The sequencing left Democrats with the clearest line: they tried to make the fund an issue that couldn’t survive the immigration package. Republicans, while conceding the politics, refused to accept that premise.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he wasn’t surprised Republicans wouldn’t take action against the controversial settlement fund. “There’s only one rule here: In the end, he gets anything he wants,” Murphy told HuffPost, referring to Trump.
The morning’s pivot point came after the bill stalled for weeks over Republican anxieties about the fund. which Trump created through a dubious “settlement” of a lawsuit he himself filed against his own administration over a past leak of his tax returns. Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. 2021. have long argued they deserved cash compensation for what they called mistreatment by the Justice Department. and Democrats say the fund is designed to deliver it.
For a brief window, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) offered a motion to send the immigration bill back to committee with instructions to outlaw the slush fund. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted for the Schumer motion. Three other Republicans — Sens. Jon Husted (Ohio), Dan Sullivan (Alaska) and Bill Cassidy (La.) — refused to vote either way. Then Cassidy “caved” while Husted and Sullivan voted yes, and the motion failed 49-50.
Democrats then faced a far starker result: the Senate resoundingly rejected an amendment from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to redirect “anti-weaponization” money to anti-fraud enforcement. That vote failed 15 to 84.
Republicans also cleared additional procedural hurdles, including an amendment by Cassidy that would have redirected payouts from the fund to law enforcement officers injured during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. That idea failed after just six Republicans joined Democrats in voting for it.
The vote tally mattered because of the story Republicans themselves had been telling — at least on paper.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the settlement last month, then told a committee this week that the administration was “not moving forward with the fund,” crediting backlash from Republican lawmakers. Some senators used that statement to dismiss the controversy as settled.
Even so, the president’s own comments this week suggested the fund might still be alive, adding pressure to Democrats’ argument that legislation was needed to actually close the door. When asked about the fund, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) told HuffPost, “It’s a moot point.” “There is no fund.”
Tillis. once among the sharper critics of the arrangement. insisted he wouldn’t support a final immigration bill that didn’t include anti-fund language. Speaking to reporters on Thursday. he said. “I’m not going to vote for it if we don’t have underlying language to restrict 1776 fund. ” referring to the $1.776 billion amount of Trump’s slush fund.
Democrats kept pushing for tougher restrictions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told HuffPost, “We need to make it illegal for the president to create a slush fund.” She added, “That’s our job.”
Democratic proposals went further than Tillis’s efforts, including one by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to ban the president from suing his own government to set up sham settlements. Democrats also pointed to a detail built into Trump’s deal: it freed Trump. his family and his businesses from any ongoing IRS audits. potentially saving the president millions of dollars. In the Senate. Republicans appeared less focused on that part of the settlement than they were on preserving immigration enforcement funding.
Ultimately, the Senate passed the $70 billion bill early Friday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the lone Republican to oppose the bill.
Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) argued the Senate could still revisit the fund later. saying it was important for Republicans to stick together on funding immigration-enforcement sub-agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. He said the GOP used a special budget process to pass funding for ICE and Border Patrol because Democrats have refused to do so since January.
“If I can get an opportunity to kill the fund, I will kill it, but we need to fund these departments,” Curtis said.
Taken together, the votes show how the controversy over Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” survived contact with a fast-moving immigration package — and how, for now, Democrats’ effort to force a direct ban on the settlement-style payouts failed before the money was even fully in motion.
Senate Republicans Trump Anti-Weaponization Fund slush fund immigration bill ICE Border Patrol Chuck Schumer Thom Tillis Chris Murphy Todd Blanche Todd Blanche settlement Jan. 6 2021
So they basically let Trump keep his “slush fund”?? Sounds corrupt.
I’m confused, is this about immigration or about that tax return lawsuit? They keep calling it a slush fund but then it’s like settlement money? Either way, Congress moves fast when it benefits them.
Murphy said “he gets anything he wants” but like… that’s been the case forever. Also Jan 6 supporters getting cash compensation?? I thought that was just like a rumor people say. So they voted down stopping it and still pushed a 70 billion immigration bill… which feels unrelated but isn’t?
Budget path = they just snuck it through. Meanwhile Democrats are like “cut off the fund” but then they’re still attaching it to immigration enforcement?? I bet this is why everybody’s mad at the Justice Dept leak thing, like somehow Democrats are the ones helping Trump. Not saying that’s true, just seems like the headline mix-up.