[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 101 (Tuesday, June 16, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2807-S2809]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. 4791
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we are going to speak on eliminating
Trump's slush fund.
Now, the only way--the only way--to ensure Trump's $2 billion
taxpayer-funded MAGA slush fund and his family's sweetheart tax fraud
deal with the IRS--the only way we are going to ensure that they never
see the light of day is to ban them permanently by law. Republicans
need to stop playing dumb and realize Trump has absolutely zero
intention to table his slush fund.
Just listen to him. Just this month, Trump said:
Personally, I think the weaponization fund is a great idea,
and so do many other Republicans.
``So do many other Republicans.''
I repeat. Trump said:
I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do
many other Republicans.
I invite Republicans to prove Trump wrong, support this bill, outlaw
this corruption, say it is a terrible idea on the floor so that we can
eliminate it permanently, once and for all.
Republicans have passed up opportunity after opportunity to ban these
corrupt cash handouts for Trump, his billionaire friends, and his cop-
beating January 6 insurrectionists.
That is what he wants to do, Americans. Instead of using money to
reduce your healthcare costs, instead of using money to reduce your
electric costs, your housing costs, your food costs, he wants to give
it to his corrupt friends and probably, somehow, to himself.
Will Republicans listen to the empty promises of Trump's personal
fixer, Todd Blanche, or to the outraged cries of the American people,
who despise--despise--this corruption?
Will Republicans help Trump and family cheat on their taxes or will
they stand up for American taxpayers?
Will Republicans funnel billions of dollars to Trump, MAGA
billionaires, cop beaters, convicted criminals; or will they work with
Democrats to lower costs for working families?
That is the question before us today, plain and simple. Trump's slush
fund,
[[Page S2808]]
his permission slip for tax fraud, and his nonstop grifting are a
running tally of corruption's cost and proof that Trump hasn't drained
the swamp; he has just slapped a pool liner on it. In short, Trump
isn't draining the swamp. He is swimming in it, and he likes it.
So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to
the immediate consideration of S. 4791, submitted earlier today.
Further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read three
times and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made
and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. HAGERTY. Yes, there is, Mr. President.
Reserving the right to object, the President made clear that he would
not seek any compensation from the anti-weaponization fund, and, for my
own part, I have made it clear that I won't seek any compensation from
the anti-weaponization fund.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, under oath, has said:
We are not moving forward with the fund, period.
Why is that not enough for my colleagues from across the aisle?
Because they have a deeper and much darker motive. They want to erase
the Biden Justice Department's unprecedented weaponization by
abolishing every means of holding it accountable. I am not going to
stand for it.
Has there ever been a more systematic effort to surveil and oppress
the political operation of a sitting President's opponents than under
Joe Biden?
We all know the answer. In fact, my esteemed colleague from Iowa
Chairman Grassley has called it ``arguably worse than Watergate.''
The Biden DOJ's Arctic Frost Operation involved a taxpayer-funded
army of lawyers obtaining financial information on over 400 individuals
and groups that happened to support President Trump in the 2020
election.
Yet, despite serious internal concerns and objections that were
raised within the DOJ that this wasn't a proper basis for a search,
President Trump's home was raided, at Mar-a-Lago, in a made-for-TV
operation.
This witch hunt extended even to the halls of the U.S. Senate. By
now, everyone is familiar with how the Biden DOJ subpoenaed the records
of eight Republican Senators--myself included--specifically because of
conversations that we had in anticipation of a vote that was coming up
on this matter.
That is a serious affront to congressional privileges, and it was a
clear violation of the Constitution's speech or debate clause.
Did the Constitution matter to the Biden DOJ or to their allies at
Verizon? It seems not. The Biden DOJ and Verizon violated the
constitutional rights of numerous Republican Senators.
Several of my staff were among those with the temerity to serve in
the Trump administration. Without any reason to think they were
involved in any wrongdoing, members of my staff were subpoenaed, they
were forced to hire counsel, and they were subjected to depositions.
The costs can be ruinous.
As my staff was tortured, I saw firsthand how the process was the
punishment. Think about it. If you could ruin someone's financial
future, there is no need to prove them guilty. If you can set an
example that working in a Republican administration will get you put on
a ``do not hire'' list by left-leaning law firms or make you the target
of taxpayer-funded investigations by a Democrat-controlled and
weaponized DOJ, then you achieve another chilling objective--that is
suppression.
Democrats in the last administration weren't satisfied with targeting
Republican officials and staffers; they went even further. To take just
one example, the DOJ under President Biden brought its enormous power
to bear on the groups it hates the most. In my home State, that was
pro-life demonstrators. Yes, that is right. When violent crime had
skyrocketed in American cities across the Nation, the Biden DOJ devoted
precious resources to criminally prosecuting peaceful pro-life
demonstrators in my home State of Nashville, TN. They were letting go
criminal illegal aliens, who would strike again, just so they could
prosecute those whose politics they disagreed with. What a disgrace.
My colleagues across the aisle are simply trying to cover up and
sweep under the rug the fact that the Department of Justice under
President Biden became a tool to destroy his political opponents.
Just so there is no mistake, this is far from the first political
controversy involving the DOJ's settlement authority. I won't recount
all of the instances in which the Biden or Obama administration used
DOJ settlement funds to funnel billions of dollars to their pet
projects. Needless to say, my Democrat colleagues apparently saw no
problem with that. Indeed, not a single Democrat ever cosponsored the
Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act in the 114th Congress, in the 115th
Congress, nor in the 117th or the 118th Congress. Yet now, when any
victim of the Biden DOJ's weaponization might actually receive some
recompense--well, now, they have found religion. And even that is an
overstatement.
Today's bill is different in the worst way from Republicans' previous
efforts to constrain the DOJ's settlement authority. This proposal by
the minority leader isn't an evenhanded proposal that would constrain
Presidents of both parties moving forward; it would solely invalidate a
single settlement agreement involving specific parties. This treads
dangerously close to the Constitution's prohibitions against ex post
facto laws and retroactive legislation, and I have serious concerns
that it violates the Fifth Amendment's due process clause.
I can't stand for this unconstitutional, hypocritical bill;
therefore, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. My colleague from Tennessee talked about things being
swept under the rug. Nothing--nothing--sweeps under the rug this
statement of Donald Trump's:
Personally, I think the weaponization fund is a great idea,
and so do many other Republicans.
He is going to do it unless we stop it. The objection is so
unfortunate. It allows Trump to continue with his slush fund.
I yield the floor to my colleague from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, this past January 6, I introduced a bill
we titled the ``No Rewards for January 6 Rioters Act'' because, as we
knew, as we saw just last year, one of the very first things Donald
Trump did when he came back into office was to issue pardons for every
person convicted of crimes connected to the January 6 insurrection--
people convicted in a court of law by a jury of their peers for trying
to not just subvert an election and the peaceful transfer of power but
by assaulting Congress itself, assaulting Capitol Police officers,
threatening to hang the then-Vice President of the United States.
But we know that abuse of power, these pardons, were just the
beginning. Since then, there has been an active campaign to raid
taxpayer funds to reward those who stormed and ransacked the Capitol.
So I for one was not surprised when Acting Attorney General Todd
Blanche announced a corrupt settlement to create a $1.8 billion slush
fund for Donald Trump to reward the perpetrators of the January 6
attacks. And I hope you all noticed--because it doesn't happen very
often--that the outrage, the pushback on this fund was bipartisan. Many
in Congress on both sides of the aisle viewed it as an unacceptable
abuse of power. As a result, Mr. Blanche has testified to Congress that
the fund is ``dead.'' But in the court proceedings, he, the Department,
and the President refused to put it in writing. No one has been willing
to confirm under penalty of perjury that the fund will never go
forward. Why? What are they holding back on?
Now making matters worse, the President is still using this corrupt
settlement to shield himself and his family business from review by the
IRS permanently. That is right. The President of the United States sued
his own government, led by an Attorney General who happened to be his
personal lawyer, and they reached a settlement
[[Page S2809]]
to bar the IRS from ever reviewing his tax returns--not just for
himself; for his family, for his trusts, and his affiliated companies.
So it is obvious to the American people that Congress needs to act to
rein in this corrupt behavior.
I should underscore a point here because on the one hand, there have
been these measures to block the creation of the fund. There are other
ways for payments to go out from the Department of Justice. So it is
not just the creation of the fund that needs to be blocked; payment to
those convicted of violence on January 6 needs to be explicitly clear.
Now, I am a little surprised but not shocked at what I have seen in
the last couple of weeks because now we see Republicans reverse
quickly. Just a couple weeks ago, many of them were very concerned
about this proposal. Yet, simultaneously, they would come to the floor
to block my bill to prohibit the payouts to January 6 insurrectionists.
Now, today, they have objected to Senator Schumer's bill to fix this
once again.
So let me be clear: This fight is not over. The American people
cannot and will not bear the cost of corruption that this
administration has created.
While the slush fund is apparently dead for now, we have our eye on
the many financial claims that were filed by January 6 insurrectionists
that are still pending at the Department of Justice given other
programs and pots of funding, which is why, colleagues, unless we pass
my legislation, there is nothing to stop the DOJ from handing hard-
working American taxpayer money out the door to January 6 rioters. And
until we pass Senator Schumer's legislation, President Trump will
continue to seek lifetime immunity from tax audits.
If our Republican colleagues will not join Democrats to address this,
I guarantee you the American people will.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. HAGERTY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak before
the previously scheduled recess.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HAGERTY. Mr. President, I find it quite interesting that my
Democratic colleagues are now seeking to somehow block some of the
funds of the Department of Justice when they would never do this
before. I mentioned earlier that Republicans put forward the Stop
Settlement Slush Funds Act. In four previous Congresses, not a single
Democrat was willing to join; not a single Democrat was willing to help
us rein in the Department of Justice. Yet, when we find abject
weaponization of the Department of Justice, when we have my own staff--
and I would ask any of the staff in this room to think about it, put
themselves in their shoes. If you happen to work in the White House
under a Republican administration, then you can find yourself, under a
weaponized DOJ, subject to subpoena, subject to depositions, and your
parents are putting $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 of their life savings
at stake to protect and defend their children. This is exactly the
conversation I had with my staff and their parents. It is
heartbreaking. It needs to stop, and there needs to be accountability
so this never happens again.
I am not about to stand here and just sweep this under the rug and
act like the weaponization of the Biden DOJ never happened. Not in
history has anything happened like this before, where a sitting
President goes after his opponent and all of his opponent's allies--
subpoenaing U.S. Senators' phone records, like they did mine; having a
corrupt operation with--it appears Verizon and the DOJ colluded. Maybe
Verizon had a particular transaction like the Frontier acquisition that
they wanted to curry favor with DOJ to achieve and therefore just
violated the Constitution and handed my records over, along with other
U.S. Senators'.
This should not be allowed to happen. We can't, as Americans, act
like it never did, and to accept Senator Schumer and my colleague
Senator Padilla's recommendation would somehow give credence that
nothing ever did happen. Indeed, the worst weaponization of government
that we have ever seen in our lifetime did happen under the Biden
administration.
I will not stand for it.
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