The Trump administration on Monday said it's creating a $1.7 billion fund to compensate prosecuted allies of the Republican president after he moved to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was announced by the Justice Department as part of a deal to resolve President Donald Trump’s case over the leak of his tax returns. Democrats and government watchdogs immediately pledged to fight the arrangement.
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Earlier in the day, world shares mostly retreated and oil prices jumped after Trump warned Tehran that the “clock is ticking” as U.S.-Iran negotiations over a permanent end to the war stall. U.S. futures fell and markets in Japan and South Korea pulled back from their records.
Here's the latest:
House lawmakers hear from Epstein’s jail guard
The House Oversight Committee is interviewing Tova Noel, the former guard who was working the night that Jeffrey Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019.
Noel and the other guard on duty that night, Michael Thomas, have admitted to falsifying records after facing federal charges in 2021 that stemmed from Epstein’s death. New York City’s medical examiner ruled his death a suicide, but conspiracy theories have swirled around his death for years.
House lawmakers have said they want to examine the conditions at the jail at the time Epstein died.
Hegseth campaigning alongside a Trump-backed congressional candidate
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will spend Monday afternoon campaigning alongside a Trump-backed congressional candidate on the eve of Kentucky’s high-profile 4th district GOP primary contest.
Hegseth is scheduled to appear with former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein at the 1 p.m. EST rally in Hebron, Kentucky. The event is hosted by the Trump-allied group, America First Works.
Galleria is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, whom Trump has vowed to help defeat because of Massie’s vocal criticism of the Republican president.
The Pentagon issued a statement on Monday declaring that Hegseth was attending Monday’s event “in his personal capacity” and that no taxpayer dollars would be used to facilitate his visit.
If established, the fund would represent a highly unorthodox resolution
It would also be a further demonstration of the Trump administration’s eagerness to reward allies who before Trump came to power were investigated and in some cases charged and convicted.
Most notably, the president on his first day back in office pardoned or commuted the sentences of supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His Justice Department since then has approved payouts to supporters entangled in the Trump-Russia investigation and investigated and prosecuted some of his perceived adversaries.
Justice Department announces $1.7B fund to compensate Trump allies in deal to drop IRS suit
The Trump administration said Monday that it’s creating a $1.7 billion fund to compensate prosecuted allies of the Republican president after he moved to drop his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was announced by the Justice Department as part of a deal to resolve President Trump’s case over the leak of his tax returns.
Democrats and government watchdogs immediately pledged to fight what they called a “corrupt” and unprecedented resolution.
Trump’s lawsuit followed the leak of tax returns
Trump filed the lawsuit earlier this year in a Florida federal court, alleging a previous leak of his and the Trump Organization’s confidential tax records caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”
The president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, are also named plaintiffs in the suit.
In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn — who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm — was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about Trump and others to two news outlets between 2018 and 2020.
Trump and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul trade blame on the Long Island Rail Road strike
Hochul, a Democrat, has blamed the Trump administration for cutting mediation short in September and pushing the unions toward a strike. Trump, a Republican, said on his Truth Social platform that he had nothing to do with it.
“No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,” Trump said.
Commuters in New York City’s suburbs navigated a gauntlet of car, bus and subway routes to get to work Monday after a strike on the Long Island Rail Road that shut down the nation’s busiest commuter rail system entered its third day.
Hochul urged companies and agencies that employ workers from Long Island to let them work from home whenever possible.
It’s not immediately clear who precisely will stand to benefit from the fund
But its creation reflects Trump’s long-running claims that the Biden administration Justice Department was weaponized against him.
He’s cited as proof the since-dismissed criminal charges he faced between his first and second terms of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election he lost and of retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Several aides of his were also prosecuted, as were hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Merrick Garland, who served as attorney general during former President Joe Biden’s administration, has repeatedly denied allegations of politicization and has said his decisions followed facts, the evidence and the law. His Justice Department also investigated Biden for his handling of classified information and brought separate tax and gun prosecutions against Biden’s son Hunter.
News that administration contemplating fund to pay Trump allies draws backlash from Democrats
Rep. Jamie Raskin called the idea “unconstitutional.”
“This, of course, is a political grievance fund that Donald Trump can use to pay off his friends,” Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“If these people have a valid cause of action, they should bring it to the court like every other American does, and use the system of due process, and proving things by clear and convincing evidence, or a preponderance of evidence, go and prove it. But the idea that Donald Trump can just pass it out like a pardon is absurd,” he added.
Trump moves to dismiss $10B suit over leak of tax returns after reports of a resolution
President Trump on Monday moved to withdraw his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns after reports that a resolution of the case was close at hand.
The disclosure was made in a filing in federal court in Florida, where the lawsuit was filed.
ABC News first reported last week that Trump was prepared to drop his lawsuit as part of a deal that would create a $1.7 billion fund to pay allies of the president who believe they were wrongly investigated and prosecuted.
The court filing did not mention terms of any potential deal.
Will White House correspondents’ dinner be rescheduled? Some say: ‘Let’s call the whole thing off’
More than three weeks after the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was thrown into chaos and panic when a man stormed the Washington Hilton lobby and opened fire in what prosecutors say was an attempt to kill President Donald Trump, the event has yet to be rescheduled.
The association “continues to weigh options for rescheduling the event,” its president, Weijia Jiang of CBS News, said from China last week where she was covering Trump — alongside whom she hit the floor that night as shots rang out.
“We will do this again,” Jiang had said then. Trump, for his part, said on social media the dinner would be rescheduled within 30 days (though it’s not up to him), which would bring it to late this month.
That seems hardly likely, at least not an event that would accommodate close to 3,000 people. WHCA board members are scoping out smaller venues, a person familiar with the situation said, with the understanding that, if rescheduled, it would necessarily be a pared-down event — a nod to financial as well as security concerns.
Redistricting debate shifts to South Carolina as Republicans seek clean sweep of US House seats
An effort to reshape South Carolina’s congressional districts will get its first full airing Monday in the state House, as lawmakers launch a lengthy and potentially testy discussion on whether to accede to Trump’s desires for a U.S. House map that could yield a clean sweep for Republicans.
Tense debates already have played out in Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana as Republicans push aggressively to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minority districts. The ruling has opened the way for Republicans to redraw districts with large Black populations that have elected Democrats.
In South Carolina, that means targeting a seat long held by U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat among the state’s seven representatives in the House.
Early voting is scheduled to begin May 26 for South Carolina’s statewide primaries on June 9. In addition to redrawing congressional districts, legislation pending in the state House would move the U.S. House primaries to August. If it clears the House, the legislation then must go to the Senate.
China agrees to boost trade for US agricultural products following Trump-Xi summit
China has agreed to ramp up trade for U.S. agricultural products such as beef and poultry, buying at an annualized rate of $17 billion per year for 2026 and at that level for 2027 and 2028, the White House announced Sunday.
China would restore market access for U.S. beef and resume imports of poultry from U.S. states determined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be free of the bird flu, the White House said. The deals are on top of China’s soybean purchase commitments last year.
The agreements offer some hope to American farmers harmed by the trade war as they saw a major export market for soybeans and other products dry up. Farmers also are feeling new pressure from Trump administration policies — the war that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran has curtailed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade corridor that has restricted global fertilizer supplies and sent those prices soaring.
Drone strikes UAE nuclear plant as US and Iran signal they are prepared to resume war
A drone strike sparked a fire on the edge of the United Arab Emirates’ sole nuclear power plant on Sunday in what authorities called an “unprovoked terrorist attack.” No one was blamed, but it highlighted the risk of renewed war as the United States and Iran signaled they were ready to fight again.
There were no reported injuries or radiological release. The UAE, which has hosted air defenses and personnel from Israel, recently accused Iran of launching drone and missile attacks. Tensions have risen over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy waterway gripped by Iran, which is under a U.S. naval blockade.
The ceasefire remains tenuous, with diplomatic efforts for a more durable peace having faltered. And fighting has heated up between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon despite a nominal ceasefire there.
Stocks fall and oil rises after Trump warns Iran that ‘clock is ticking’
World shares mostly retreated and oil prices jumped on Monday after Trump warned Tehran that the “clock is ticking” as U.S.-Iran negotiations over a permanent end to the war stall.
U.S. futures fell and markets in Japan and South Korea pulled back from their records. In early European trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.1% to 10,205.31. France’s CAC 40 lost 0.9% to 7,883.42, and Germany’s DAX dropped 0.1% to 23,925.82.
During Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1% to 60,815.95, a decline led by technology-related stocks. It reached all-time intraday high levels last week above 63,000.
The yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond surged to as high as 2.8%, its highest level since the late 1990s. That’s part of a broader shift toward higher yields as the Bank of Japan gradually raises interest rates and higher energy costs raise expectations of rising inflation. The yield was around 2.55% just one week ago.