Donald Trump appears to be putting his $1.776 billion slush fund on ice.
As first reported by Axios, a senior administration official said that the fund is “dead for now,” and another source said that the “plan” is to “halt” it. “But the president likes the fund, he believes in it,” one of the sources told the outlet. “So nothing is final until it's final.”
The Trump Justice Department later confirmed the reporting on the record, misleadingly claiming that they were complying with a court order. But the truth was that no court permanently blocked the fund’s operation. There was only a temporary restraining order preserving the status quo until one of the legal challenges could be litigated, and Trump appears to be spinning retreat as compliance, as he faces a growing number of rebukes from judges, Congress, and the public.
During a roughly 40-minute conversation on Substack Live, former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann and I noted that shelving the fund likely won’t dull the Trump administration’s legal headaches. Congressional lawmakers are considering legislation to permanently block the fund, and a federal judge has opened an inquiry to consider whether to sanction the government lawyers behind Trump v. Internal Revenue Service for abusing the legal process.
Find out why in the full video at the top of this newsletter.
