The Trump administration plans to drop the Department of Justice‘s $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” in the face of legal and political pushback to it, reports said Monday.
The fund was created as part of a settlement of President Donald Trump‘s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. It is intended to compensate people who were purportedly victims of prosecutorial overreach by the DOJ under the Biden administration.
In addition to the DOJ creating the fund, the settlement included an agreement that protected Trump and his family members from any enforcement actions, including audits, related to their tax filings made before the deal was announced.
Reports that the fund was being put on ice came after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., met with Trump at the White House about the fund.
“I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters on Monday.
US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, May 8, 2026.
Aaron Schwartz | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Axios, in its report Monday, quoted a senior administration official as saying that the fund is “dead for now.”
Punchbowl separately reported that “the administration is expected to announce that they are going to comply with the court order and not go forward on the weaponization fund.”
MS NOW soon after confirmed Axios’ report.
On Friday, a federal judge blocked the DOJ from taking any action to create or disburse money from the fund for now as a lawsuit challenging it plays out in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.
Judge Leonie Brinkema also scheduled a June 12 court hearing on whether to maintain the injunction against the fund.
Brinkema is overseeing one of three federal lawsuits that seek to block the fund.
On Monday, a DOJ spokesperson, when asked about reports saying the fund was being dropped, told CNBC in an email, “The Department of Justice disagrees strongly with the decision on the Anti-Weaponization Fund put forth by the United States District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, wherein the Court stated that, under no circumstances, may the Department of Justice proceed with the Anti-Weaponization Fund recently established in order to make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to so many people.”
“This Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise,” the spokesperson said. “The Department will abide by the Court’s ruling.”
Brinkema’s ruling only put a temporary stay on the fund, not a permanent one.
The White House, when asked for comment on the fate of the fund, referred CNBC to a post on X by the DOJ containing its statement that it would abide by Brinkema’s ruling.
Brinkema’s order pausing the fund came hours before another federal judge, in Miami, effectively reopened Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, whose settlement had led to the creation of the fund. Trump had sued the IRS over the leak of his tax records by an IRS employee.
Judge Kathleen Williams said in reopening the suit that she wanted to probe “grievous allegations” that Trump and the DOJ voluntarily dismissed the case to avoid her scrutinizing the legitimacy of the lawsuit.
Williams’ move came after a group of 35 former federal judges urged her to reopen the case, arguing in a court filing that “the purported ‘settlement’ that the parties never placed before this Court raises profound questions about the parties’ candor toward the Court and manipulation of the judicial system, which threatens to undermine confidence in the administration of justice.”
On Monday morning, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats would “launch a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door.”
Schumer said Democrats would force Republican senators to vote on the fund by offering a series of amendments during an expected reconciliation vote to fund immigration law enforcement agencies within the Department of Homeland Security.
Criticism of the fund within the Senate GOP caucus last month led Republican senators to drop plans for a reconciliation vote before the Senate went into recess.
“If Trump and Republicans are truly abandoning this corrupt scheme, they should have zero problem banning it in law,” Schumer said in a tweet later Monday.
“This week, Senate Democrats will push legislation to ban this slush fund and ensure no president can ever do this again,” Schumer said. “Trump’s word is nowhere near enough.”
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