We’re Fortunate the Trump Admin’s Cowardice Sometimes Blocks Its Corruption

You would probably think, in an administration as inundated in corruption as that of Donald Trump during his second term in office, that there would be at least a baseline of commitment to the bit. When you’re Trump, and you put your head together with your own lackeys at the Department of Justice and the IRS, and work out a sweetheart deal to create a $1.8 billion jackpot that can be used as the world’s largest slush fund to funnel money toward supporters and bribe-accepters, wouldn’t you expect to have a little sit-down with your conspirators and go over things like “How we’ll respond when this proves to be unpopular?”

That’s what a competent group of folks would do, after all. They’d workshop all of the messaging in advance, figure out how to get all of the important GOP voices on board to amplify the message, disseminate the right talking points to project unity. Competent people would leave no room for possibility that, a week or so after they announce the $1.8 billion “weaponization” fund, that they just withdraw the plan with their tails planted firmly between their legs. And yet here we are, with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche having confirmed yesterday that the DOJ would do exactly that, while offering zero rationale for why the department is suddenly veering in the opposite direction. Once again, we find ourselves fortunate as Americans that the administration’s cowardice and lack of planning and competence occasionally outstrips its efforts toward overt corruption. Heaven help us if our overlords are ever as competent as they are evil.

“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” said Blanche to members of the House Appropriations subcommittee while being grilled on the ethics and legality of just setting aside $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds to give to anyone with a MAGA hat. At the same time, he stressed to members of Congress that the other, arguably even more important part of the deal, which blocks the IRS in perpetuity from investigating Trump, his family or businesses for tax fraud, will remain in place. Or as Blanche put it, “Nothing has changed with that.”

“So the blanket immunity is not something that you’re going to move back on?”, asked an incredulous Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT). “You do not belong in this job.”

Well that’s putting it lightly, given that the IRS deal and blanket immunity for Trump could save the President $100 million or more personally in penalties and fines. For our purposes here, though, I want to focus on the truly pathetic level of commitment that the likes of the President and Blanche have displayed toward the idea that “weaponization” of the Justice Department toward Trump supporters during the Biden administration is something that deserves rectification.

BLANCHE: We are not moving forward with the weaponization fund. Period.

MENG: Could we get that in writing?

BLANCHE: I’m telling you it’s not progressing

MENG: We hope to see this in writing

BLANCHE: I think there will be a transcript of what I say here

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 4:48 PM · Jun 2, 2026

The weaponization fund, in theory, was meant to compensate people who claimed to have been the victims of unfair prosecution by a politically infected Biden-era DOJ. But even when addressing the most ideologically friendly audience possible–a GOP Congress–Todd Blanche, Trump’s own former personal attorney, had seemingly no idea whatsoever how he was supposed to sell the idea. He had no answer, for instance, about basic questions of whether the money in the fund would be available for Jan. 6, 2021 rioters who were convicted of assaulting police officers and later pardoned by Trump–some of those same lovely individuals have recently been hired by the Pentagon, by the way. In general, Blanche failed publicly to win over members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, before a federal judge then added insult to injury by ordering any distribution of funds to be paused until mid-June while lawsuits were evaluated. This loss of momentum led to the hasty retreat on the weaponization fund.

You can only laugh, though, at the clear takeaway: Despite planning as of Monday of this week to spend $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds compensating victims of “weaponization,” the DOJ and Trump are signaling in their reversal that they never cared one iota about actually doing this, nor were they willing to defend it even a little. Is Trump now vowing to help those people in some other way? No, he’s posting photos of himself as James Bond on Truth Social, which is apparently a bit more palatable to his base than posting photos of himself as Jesus. The problem of “weaponization” is now apparently fixed, never to be mentioned again.

WOW. So Blanche won’t rescind the tax immunity. Was the entire charade just a cover to grant Trump tax immunity? Blanche claims that part of the “settlement” still stands. This is somehow MORE CORRUPT.

— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) 4:51 PM · Jun 2, 2026

Imagine, for a moment, that you actually are one of those MAGA Americans, someone who believes (or imagines) themselves to have suffered persecution and lawfare from the Biden DOJ. You’re thrilled that the POTUS has taken notice of your plight, and announced a historic fund to benefit people just like you, to provide for your children and make you whole after what was presumably a humiliating legal ordeal. But then, wait, the plan is receiving some criticism from the GOP brass, and … oh, now it’s canceled entirely. Sorry, the $1.8 billion that was critically important to distribute on Monday is now a political boondoggle on Wednesday, and the acting attorney general who proudly announced the fund now won’t even offer a rationale for why it’s “not moving forward.” It’s just not, because we need the congressional GOP to agree to get back to the real work of supplying money for ICE. Imagine this being the way that you finally accept, as a Trump voter, that this guy doesn’t give a shit about you.

Voters, I’ve heard, love it when the President promises them a huge sum of money, and then changes his mind a week later on the topic of whether they deserve a single dollar of compensation. Sadly, however, when you choose a shortsighted coward as a leader, someone who can’t even stick to their own bullshit rationalizations for more than a few days at a time, disappointment is something you no doubt have to get used to.