Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on June 1 launched a coordinated effort to block a nearly $1.8 billion Justice Department (DOJ) fund tied to President Donald Trump’s settled lawsuit against the IRS, telling colleagues his caucus would use every legislative tool available to stop it.
In a letter to Senate Democrats sent as the chamber returned from its Memorial Day recess, Schumer said the party would rely on budget reconciliation, the annual spending bills, floor votes, and oversight to keep the money from going out. He pledged to force Republicans to take recorded votes on the issue.
“This week, Senate Democrats will launch a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door,” Schumer wrote, using his term for the program. “And no matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote.”
Schumer wrote that Democrats would offer amendments if Republicans turned to reconciliation, push the matter to the floor if necessary, and contest it again in the spending bills. He said Democrats would also demand that records be preserved and seek answers from the DOJ, the Treasury Department, and the White House about who requested and approved the settlement and who stood to benefit.
He described the fund as “self-dealing with a government seal” and accused Trump of “turning the federal government into his own piggy bank.”
The White House referred The Epoch Times to the DOJ on Monday in response to Schumer’s allegations. The DOJ did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
The DOJ created it through a settlement after Trump agreed to drop a $10 billion lawsuit that he, two of his sons, and the family business had filed against the IRS in January.
That suit alleged the agency and the Treasury Department failed to stop a former contractor from leaking Trump’s tax returns to The New York Times and ProPublica. Trump also withdrew claims tied to the 2022 FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home and an investigation into his 2016 campaign.
The department has said the fund would compensate people it describes as victims of government “weaponization and lawfare,” with a five-member board appointed by Blanche deciding claims and no partisan test to apply. The plaintiffs in the IRS case received a formal apology but no money, according to the department.
“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American,” Blanche said in the May 18 statement.
Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia temporarily barred the department from setting up or operating the fund so that no money is “irreversibly disbursed,” and set a June 12 hearing.
The order came in a lawsuit by former federal prosecutor Andrew Floyd and others, who argued the fund had “no congressional authorization, no basis in law, and no accountability.”
Criticism of the fund has come from both parties.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told The Hill it was “unprecedented” for someone to be on both sides of a legal decision, comparing it to making “a plea bargain with yourself.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Trump had “lost some support in the Senate.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called the program “nothing short of the sitting president of the United States looting from the Treasury for his own gain.”
Schumer framed the fight as a choice for Republicans: “Kill the slush fund or own it.”
