Senate Passes $70 Billion Immigration Bill After Anti-Weaponization Fund Dropped

M. last Friday after an 18-hour vote-a-rama that turned back 28 procedural motions. 776 billion anti-weaponization fund that had been part of the package was removed before final passage.

The fund had been created by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as part of a settlement of a $10 billion lawsuit President Trump filed against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. C. and Virginia that the fund is officially dead.

The second part of the settlement remains in place. It bars audits or prosecutions of Trump, his family, or his businesses for past failures to report or pay taxes estimated by some at more than $100 million. During the Senate vote-a-rama, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offered a motion to commit the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee with instructions to make any anti-weaponization mechanism unlawful.

The motion was rejected 49-50 after being held open for three hours. The House cleared the Senate-passed bill on Tuesday, 214-212, without further amendment. The Judgment Fund, established under a 1956 permanent appropriations statute, remains available for claims against the federal government.

Several of Trump’s former associates, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, have already received more than $800 million from that fund. 776 billion figure was chosen to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary. Justice Department lawyers maintained that challengers to the fund lacked legal standing and that the case was moot because the fund did not yet exist and never would.