Trump admin abandons $1.8 bln fund to compensate supporters
The Justice Department on June 2 dropped a contentious plan to create a $1.8 billion compensation program that critics had denounced as a "slush fund" for President Donald Trump's political allies.
"We are not moving forward with the fund. Period," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during testimony before the House Appropriations Committee.
It's an about-face for one of Trump's most divisive second-term initiatives, which had drawn criticism from Democrats, legal experts and even some members of Congress in the president's own Republican Party.
A federal judge had already temporarily blocked the White House from moving ahead with the "anti-weaponization fund" designed to compensate people who claimed to have been treated unfairly by the U.S. government.
