Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump administration’s ‘slush fund’ from advancing
Opponents of the initiative last week took the fight to the courts. On Friday, one of the cases led to an order the White House probably won’t like.
After the Trump administration unveiled its unprecedented $1.776 billion compensation fund, which was quickly panned by members of both parties as a “slush fund,” a dramatic political fight began. But the dispute extended well beyond political circles: Opponents of the scandalous initiative also took the fight to the courts.
On Friday morning, one of those cases led to a court order the White House will probably not like.
U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema temporarily blocked the administration from advancing its plan to create the fund, issuing a two-page order preventing Team Trump “from taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the Fund.”
To be sure, this is merely a preliminary step, which is unrelated to the underlying merits. For all intents and purposes, the judge (a Clinton appointee) decided to maintain the status quo until the court can hear additional arguments.
That said, it was also of interest to see a footnote in the court order, in which the judge noted that the administration failed to provide assurances that it would hold off on disbursing funds until the court had a chance to weigh in on the motion for preliminary relief. She quoted this section from the plaintiffs’ motion:
At the time of this filing, government counsel was unable, however, to provide assurances of how long that status quo would last — including declining Plaintiffs’ request that the government commit to not transferring money to the Fund or processing or paying claims until at least June 19 to allow for less compressed briefing in this case.
Brinkema’s order set a court hearing for June 12, at which point she’ll consider additional steps.
While a variety of White House opponents have challenged the fund in court, this case was filed late last week by a diverse group of plaintiffs who claim they were targeted by the Trump administration or would be negatively affected by the fund. As The New York Times reported, the list includes Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor who said he was fired for his work on the Jan. 6 investigation and is the namesake of the Floyd v. Department of Justice case.