Booker, Cassidy back legal challenge to 'anti-weaponization' fund

Michael Macagnone, CQ-Roll Call on Jun 4, 2026

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WASHINGTON — Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., filed a court brief Thursday supporting a lawsuit seeking to block implementation of the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.

The bipartisan brief was filed as the Senate voted on a measure to fund immigration enforcement, and where senators on both sides of the aisle have sought to add amendments to block the fund. Booker and Cassidy called the fund “an immediate and dire threat” to the constitutional order and Congress.

“Indeed, among other purposes, the Fund is designed to compensate the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. The existence of the Fund strikes at the core of Congressional authority and our Constitutional order,” the brief said.

The “anti-weaponization fund” had rankled Republican members of Congress and drawn outrage from Democrats who said it amounted to open corruption, with the goal of channeling taxpayer dollars to administration allies. The status of the fund played a key role in the current debate over a reconciliation bill.

The idea for the fund was outlined as part of a settlement in the unprecedented $10 billion lawsuit that Trump brought against the IRS earlier this year, a scenario in which Trump sued the same federal government he oversees.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers Tuesday that the Justice Department is scrapping its plans for the fund.

The senators in the brief noted a contradiction between testimony from Blanche and Trump’s own statements about the fund being withdrawn. The brief contends, even if the Trump administration voluntarily gave up the fund, it would not “necessarily moot the threat” of its existence.

“It is a question of whether the machinery of democratic government may be turned, by design and with explicit intent, against the democratic foundations it exists to serve,” the brief said.

The brief argued that the settlement ignored rules Congress put in place on settlement funds and was the result of a “collusive” settlement between Trump and his own administration.

“President Trump’s presence on both sides of the IRS litigation, and his own blunt statements that the case was merely an opportunity for him to ‘work out a settlement with myself,’ make evident that he and the government defendants were not adversaries at all,” the brief said.

The filing came in the same fast-moving case where a judge on Friday temporarily blocked implementation of the fund at least until a hearing on June 12. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued the order after the government did not commit to pause the fund before she could rule.

In addition to the case in Virginia, former Capitol Police officers challenged the fund in a federal suit in Washington and the original judge who heard Trump’s IRS suit has also opened an inquiry into the settlement.

In the Florida litigation, the judge there has also set a June 12 deadline for the Trump administration and Trump’s attorneys to address questions about whether the lawsuit and settlement were not adversarial enough.

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(Ryan Tarinelli contributed to this report.)