Just like Trump, the slush-fund idea may only be briefly sleeping.
It’s been quite a week for President Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund. Two federal judges issued rulings targeting the Justice Department scheme, meaningful bipartisan opposition grew in Congress, anonymous Trump administration officials said the plan was being abandoned, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers that “we’re not moving forward with the fund, period.” But reports of the slush fund’s death seem to have been an exaggeration.
The same unnamed Trump officials who said the administration was backing down hedged that the president might decide to keep going anyway. That certainly seemed to be the case on Wednesday, when Trump was asked if the plan was dead or paused and replied, “I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know.” He called the fund “a beautiful thing” and added, “I love it, I think it is so important.”
Also on Wednesday, the White House announced that Trump will nominate Blanche to be his next attorney general, which means Blanche’s apparent efforts to impress Trump during his stint as acting AG were a success.
Then on Thursday, Senate Republicans, including GOP opponents of the slush fund like Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis, defeated an effort by Senate Democrats to permanently block the fund via an amendment to an immigration bill, though both apparently intend to try to block the plan by other means.
