Beyond the Anti-Weaponization Fund: Trump's Expanding Web of Unaccountable Money

The $1.776 billion Anti-weaponization Fund is the centerpiece of the proposed settlement in Trump’s $10 billion suit against the IRS over the release of his tax returns. To be paid for by taxpayers, the Fund would be controlled by Trump and used to compensate individuals claiming they were victims of politically motivated prosecutions or investigations.

As Jonathan Winer points out in "Government by Slush Fund", his current article for The Washington Spectator, "the Blanche-Trump settlement expressly enables payments to compensate people prosecuted for their involvement in the January 6 insurrection and does not exclude January 6 defendants convicted of violent crimes, including assaults on law enforcement officers." Nor does it exclude people convicted of seditious conspiracy, domestic terrorists, drug traffickers, or sex offenders. It is, essentially, a Fund for people whose "claims of ‘weaponization’ rest not on innocence or legal exoneration, but on political grievance."

Interestingly, the outcry over this latest instance of Trump’s ingrained and shameless corruption came from Republicans as well, who perhaps in the face of plummeting poll numbers are finally growing wary of having to carry the banner of Trumpism into the fall elections.

Under questioning before Congress, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is also Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, pivoted and declared "We’re not moving forward with the Fund, period."

"Not moving forward ever?" pressed Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y.

"Correct," Blanche responded.

Not so fast.

Blanche refused to commit to rescinding the fund in writing despite repeated pleas from Meng to do so. And a few days later Republicans in the Senate killed a bill from Delaware Senator Chris Coons that would have prevented the DOJ from using public funds to compensate January 6th perpetrators.

The Anti-weaponization Fund is now neither alive nor dead. Todd Blanche says the administration is "not moving forward" with it. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have declined to foreclose its use.

Winer concludes: "The fund therefore exists in a state of deliberate ambiguity: dormant if the administration chooses not to activate it, but fully capable of springing back to life if it does. Like so much of what Trump does, the ambiguity itself creates optionality: the administration avoids the political costs of implementing the Fund today while preserving the ability to revive it tomorrow if circumstances become more favorable."

The larger theme of Winer’s piece is not that the Anti-weaponization Fund is uniquely egregious, but that it is part of a broader pattern. "During his second term," Winer writes, "Trump has repeatedly created and controlled large pools of money in connection with the presidency without the legal, financial, and reporting controls that ordinarily apply when money is raised, committed, or spent under presidential authority."

So far, Trump has done this through the Anti-weaponization Fund, the Venezuelan oil proceeds structure, his International Board of Peace, the White House ballroom fund, and his Freedom 250 anniversary fund.

To give you an idea of the near total absence of accountability, consider the mechanisms associated with the appropriation of Venezuelan oil proceeds. Congress still does not know how much money is involved, or where it is being kept. Congress does not know whether foreign accounts exist, who authorized the transfers, what banks processed them, what records accompany the payments, or whether the Treasury-account structure described in the executive order reflects the actual operational structure.

Or take the White House ballroom fund, which Trump says is being financed by private donors. Yet Trump has also sought substantial federal funding tied to security and infrastructure surrounding the project while withholding any meaningful accounting of the private money already raised.

The White House released a list of 37 of the donors, but not the amounts contributed. Winer explains, "The White House has not released a complete donor ledger. It has not disclosed the value of in-kind contributions. It has not published audited financial statements. It has not produced a list of pledges, receipts, expenditures, contracts, or outstanding obligations. It has not disclosed where the funds are held, what entity holds them, who has signatory authority over the accounts, who approves expenditures, or under what procedures payments are made."

Congress, as a result, has no idea about the ballroom finances. "That uncertainty has become more significant because Trump has now sought federal support tied to the project. Senate Republicans were given a private White House briefing, from which Democrats were excluded, concerning a request for approximately $1 billion for security and infrastructure improvements associated with the White House complex and the ballroom, including hardening, visitor screening, Secret Service facilities, and related upgrades."

So far, Congress has refused to fund the ballroom in the absence of basic accounting filings.

"Government by Slush Fund" is a clear-eyed account of how Trump steamrolls the public process, undermines procedures that are in place to ensure compliance with existing statutes and ignores our laws with impunity.

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