President Donald Trump said his administration was dropping plans for a $1.8 billion fund to pay victims of alleged government "weaponization" only because a federal court temporarily blocked the move, which had become a political lightning rod.
Asked if he was dropping the fund, Trump told conservative podcaster Miranda Devine "No, a court ruled against it." A federal judge in Virginia Friday barred the administration from taking steps to operate the fund while she weighed a longer-term order against it.
At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the administration would not move forward with the fund which had been a key pillar of the agreement Trump reached in May with the IRS and Treasury Department over leaks of his tax information during his first term.
Democrats had derided the planned account as a taxpayer-financed "slush fund" for Trump's political allies. Meanwhile, some Republican senators had sought a public declaration the fund was dead before they agreed to lift a blockade on a Trump-backed immigration enforcement spending package.
Blanche, who previously served as Trump's personal attorney, appeared to seek to assuage House lawmakers by declaring that the fund wouldn't advance.
But Trump continued to defend his plan to pay supporters, like those who rioted at the Capitol on January 6, who were charged over what he called "nonsense."
"These are people that have been decimated," he said. "They were supposed to serve five years, ten years in jail. People committed suicide! And these were many great people. I gave them pardons. I'm very proud to have given them pardons. And I think they should reimbursed for a crooked government."
