A Republican congressman has vowed to block Donald Trump's $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded payout to his prosecuted MAGA allies, just hours after the President humiliated his Fox News reporter fiancée on the tarmac.
Fitzpatrick's Opposition
'We're gonna try kill it,' Pennsylvania Representative Brian Fitzpatrick told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, branding the fund 'bad news.' Fitzpatrick's defiance came just hours after Trump skewered his fiancée, Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich, 37, ignoring her question about Israel as he boarded Air Force One and instead trashing her husband-to-be as disloyal.
'Her husband votes against me all the time. Can you imagine?' Trump told other reporters gathered at Joint Base Andrews. 'You know what happens with that, doesn't work out well,' he added, in an apparent nod to the successful primary ouster of Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie.
The Settlement Details
The IRS settled a $10 billion lawsuit on Monday brought by Trump, his sons Don Jr and Eric, and the Trump Organization over the leaking of their tax records. In exchange, the government agreed to create the $1.776 billion 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' for MAGA loyalists subjected to 'lawfare' under Biden, and grant Trump and his sons immunity from any unresolved tax audits.
Fitzpatrick, 52, told a Meidas Touch reporter on Capitol Hill: 'We're considering legislative options, we're going to write a letter to the AG to start. We're trying to unpack exactly what the legal machinations are - but you can't do that.'
Legislative Efforts
Fitzpatrick and his allies are also taking issue with the President granting himself immunity from IRS tax audits as part of the settlement. Asked if he was aware of such an arrangement ever taking place, Fitzpatrick told the reporter: 'I have never heard that before.' He added that it would 'of course' be part of any legislative effort to block the $1.8 billion fund, stating emphatically: 'You can't do that.'
Heinrich, an award-winning journalist, is known for tough coverage of the Trump administration that has repeatedly drawn the President's ire. Trump branded her 'absolutely terrible' on Truth Social last year and said she 'should be working for CNN, not Fox' after she questioned his display of Tesla vehicles at the White House. The White House was contacted for comment.
