The top Senate Republican cast doubt on Tuesday on President Trump’s plan to use $1.8 billion from a government fund to compensate people who claim to have been the targets of politically motivated prosecutions, saying that Congress would scrutinize the idea.
Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, told reporters that he expected the idea would undergo a “full vetting” by appropriators, who control federal spending.
“My assumption is that based on some of the blowback that’s come since this was announced, that there would be a significant amount of attention paid to it,” Mr. Thune said.
He told Punchbowl News that he was “not a big fan” of the plan and saw no need for it.
It was not immediately clear how widespread resistance would be to the idea, which some Republicans hailed as an appropriate use of federal resources.
Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who has staked out a position as a fiscal hawk, said he supported the administration’s plan for tapping the Justice Department’s fund.
“A lot of people have been abused by the federal government,” he said, adding that he thought they should have some way to seek recourse.
But in a hearing on Tuesday with Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, raised several questions about the fund, including its legal basis, how eligibility for compensation would be determined and how amounts would be set.
She noted that the Treasury’s long-established Judgment Fund had “traditionally been used for the payment of specific claims against the government or amounts owed for the settlement of those claims, but not for future claims that have yet to be brought.”
Michael Gold contributed reporting.
Megan Mineiro is a Times congressional reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
The post Thune Casts Doubt on Trump Settlement Fund Plan appeared first on New York Times.
