Schumer forces Senate vote to block Trump justice fund

Senate Democrats moved to corner Republicans on a Trump-linked $1.8 billion fund they say could open the door to politically connected payouts, including to some Jan. 6 defendants. Chuck Schumer said he would use Senate procedure tied to the spending bill moving this week to force a vote on blocking the Justice Department’s so-called anti-weaponization, or lawfare, fund.

The fund grew out of Donald Trump’s settlement with the Internal Revenue Service over his lawsuit tied to the leaking of his tax information, and Democrats have argued it represents an attempt to turn executive-branch settlement money into a compensation pool with little public oversight. Their concern sharpened after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche would not rule out payments to people involved in the Capitol attack, including some convicted of assaulting police.

A federal judge in Virginia temporarily blocked the fund on May 29 and set a hearing for June 12, adding a judicial brake just as the political fight intensified. The Justice Department said it would abide by the court’s ruling, then later signaled it was backing off the plan. Schumer said Democrats would use the Senate fight to build a record heading into the 2026 midterms, while three Democratic senators, Adam Schiff of California, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, introduced the Drain the Slush Fund Act on June 1 to kill the fund outright and bar similar payments retroactive to Jan. 20, 2025.

The effort is drawing attention because it needs only 50 votes to pass, meaning a handful of Republicans could decide whether the Senate formally blocks the fund. That possibility has exposed an unusual split inside the party at a moment when Senate Republicans are also trying to advance a roughly $70 billion immigration-enforcement package. Republicans such as Chuck Grassley, James Lankford, Shelley Moore Capito and John Cornyn have all publicly raised concerns, with Grassley saying the president had to say explicitly that there would not be a weaponization fund and Lankford saying the administration needed to say what it actually meant.

Capito said there were still a lot of questions and that the matter needed more investigation. For Republican senators facing the immigration vote, the issue has become more than a narrow dispute over a single fund. It has become a test of whether the White House can use settlement-linked money and broad executive discretion to create a compensation mechanism that critics say could reward allies and rioters alike, with some GOP votes signaling deeper unease about how far presidential control over public money can go.