Senate Republicans departed Washington for the Memorial Day recess on Thursday without passing a $72 billion budget reconciliation package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol, after an internal revolt over a Justice Department fund perceived within the party as a vehicle to pay Trump allies.
The collapse of the vote means Congress will almost certainly miss President Trump’s stated June 1 deadline for passage of the immigration enforcement package, one of his top second-term legislative priorities.
The trigger for the revolt was the Justice Department’s creation of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, announced alongside the IRS settlement earlier in the week, which would compensate individuals claiming they were subjected to politically motivated prosecutions by previous administrations.
Several prominent January 6 rioters have already publicly stated their intention to file claims against the fund, as have convicted former politicians George Santos and Rod Blagojevich.
Republican senators said they were blindsided by the fund’s existence, and a closed-door meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday reportedly devolved into what one source described as a screaming match after Blanche refused to commit to any limits on who could receive money from it.
Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina called the fund “stupid on stilts,” telling CNN it was absurd to use taxpayer money to compensate someone convicted of assaulting a police officer on January 6.
Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who had already been a thorn in the administration’s side for voting to advance an Iran war powers resolution, was among the most vocal Republican critics of the fund.
A separate flashpoint involved Trump’s proposal to spend public money on the construction of a 90,000-square-foot ballroom as a replacement for the White House East Wing, which the nonpartisan Senate Parliamentarian ruled could not be included in the reconciliation bill.
Trump responded to the parliamentarian’s ruling by demanding Senate Majority Leader John Thune fire the official, a demand that drew further anxiety from Senate Republicans already wary of procedural escalation.
The president then went on social media to defend the $1.8 billion fund, framing it as justice for those he said were abused by the Biden Justice Department, as the legislative deadline he himself had set collapsed around him.
