Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s $1.8 Billion Slush Fund in Major Blow

A federal judge on Friday temporarily suspended the Trump administration’s plans for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund—an attempt to pay President Trump’s friends, allies, supporters, and anyone else who felt wronged by the previous administration.

The order, sent down by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, states that the president is not allowed to pursue “the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the Fund.”

The Department of Justice fund has been met with protest from both Democrats and Republicans alike for its deep conflicts of interest—given that this all came about after Trump sued his own IRS for $10 billion, then settled for this fund for people who acted in his name.

This ruling came after former January 6 prosecutor Andrew Floyd and the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued the Trump administration on the grounds that the settlement was “a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption,” which was “designed to funnel $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund to purported victims of what the President considers ‘lawfare’ and government ‘weaponization.’”

The issue will be adjudicated on June 12, when Brinkema will decide whether to issue a more lasting suspension.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump is preparing to offer Iran a $300 billion bribe to back out of a war he never should have waded into—and it’s all thanks to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

The United States is considering creating a massive investment fund for Iran as part of a peace deal, after Tehran demanded reparations for the destruction, The New York Times reported Thursday. An Iranian official put the amount for the “reconstruction program” at $300 billion.

The fund seemed to be spurred by an idea from Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, both of whom are real estate investors. Some mediators said that the duo had pitched promoting real estate projects and an investment fund for Tehran in the event that a deal was reached.

It seems pretty clear that this investment fund is a thinly veiled strategy for them to make money from the destruction Trump leaves in his wake. Kushner is currently being investigated for cashing in on foreign investment funds.

This move also reeks of irony, considering the right-wing criticism of former President Barack Obama’s previous nuclear deal with Iran that unfroze a now meager-looking $1.7 billion. Now Trump wants to write Tehran a bigger check.

A Kenyan court on Friday suspended President Trump’s plan to build a quarantine field hospital in the region to house Americans exposed to the Ebola virus in the country—rather than have them return home for treatment.

The denial came after a lawsuit filed by the Katiba Institute, a Kenyan constitutional rights organization. It alleged that the “secretive, unilateral establishment of an Ebola quarantine facility raises grave constitutional concerns regarding the rights to life, health, fair administrative action, public participation, and parliamentary oversight.”

The facility, built on the U.S. Laikipia Air Base in Kenya, would have housed up to 50 U.S. citizens while they waited for treatment. It was meant to house U.S. citizens exposed to Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Uganda.

“At its core, this case is about preserving constitutional accountability, protecting public health, and ensuring that no government may place expediency above the lives and safety of the people of Kenya,” Katiba Institute executive director Nora Mbagathi wrote Thursday on X.

The Kenyan government, which has not publicly commented on the plan, has 48 hours to respond to the court’s interim decision.

The Ebola virus is already reported to have passed 1,000 positive cases and around 250 deaths. Trump attempting to dump American citizens who got the virus in Kenya—even as both countries struggle to protect their own citizens and resources—is a paternalistic move that puts even more Kenyans in danger.

A MAGA Senate candidate who wants to challenge Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff was caught lying about who actually endorses him.

Representative Mike Collins, who is facing former football coach Derek Dooley in a heated GOP primary runoff, published endorsements from several local officials. Except, they say they haven’t actually backed him at all, according to the Daily Caller, a conservative blog.

“I wouldn’t vote for [Collins] if he’s the only one running,” Wayne County Sheriff Chuck Moseley told the Caller, after his name was included among a list of supporters on Collins’s website.

Other officials seemed to have no clue that Collins was claiming they’d backed him. GOP Grady County Chair Jeff Jolly told the Caller he asked County Sheriff Earl Prince and County Commissioner Sam Kines about their apparent support for Collins after seeing their endorsements posted on social media.

“I talked to each of them in private, and I said, ‘Look, you do what you want to do, but for my own sake, I need to know why you endorsed Mike Collins,’” Jolly said. “Both of them looked at me funny, like, ‘What are you talking about?’ They didn’t know anything about it.’”

Kines told the Caller he’d only ever offered a “generic reply” to Collins’s campaign, and even had a sign for Dooley in his yard.

Prince told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he’d “never spoken” to Collins or his campaign. “My name was used without my permission, and I have no use for anybody that does business that way,” Prince said.

Earlier this week, former Donald Trump 2024 adviser Tony Fabrizio joined Collins’s campaign as a pollster and senior strategist, indicating that the president may be leaning toward endorsing Collins.

Donald Trump’s “Great American State Fair” is on the verge of having no live music at all.

As of Friday, six of the nine original headliners have dropped out of the concert series intended to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. Martina McBride, Young MC, Milli Vanilli, The Commodores, Morris Day & The Time, and Bret Michaels have all withdrawn their names.

Their absence leaves just three booked artists on the widely advertised docket: Vanilla Ice, Flo Rida, and C+C Music Factory. But even the dwindled remainders seem on rocky ground.

Robert Clivillés, one of the co-founders of C+C Music Factory, revealed on Thursday that the group’s potential participation in the event was highly contentious and possibly illegal.

Clivillés claimed that Freedom Williams—who provided rap vocals on the hit track “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” and whose picture appears on the Freedom 250 event page—had no right to use the group’s name for his own tour, since he was only ever a featured guest artist and never a contractual component of the band.

“C&C Music Factory in-fact means Clivlles [sic] & Cole Music Factory,” Clivillés posted on his Facebook page. “Freedom Williams should not be using it to tour, nor represent what this group stands for in anyway! He should address himself as Freedom Williams formerly a guest featured artist on C&C Music Factory.

“Any comment that Freedom Williams makes or any event that he participates in regarding any Political or Religious views or opinions, he makes as Freedom Williams an individual solely, it has nothing to do with C&C Music Factories music or viewpoints in anyway,” Clivillés added, urging fans to go haunt Williams’s social media pages in order to change his mind.

Other artists on the original advert for the Great American State Fair claimed that the booking process was misleading and that they were not previously made aware of the event’s highly partisan flair.

“I asked lots of questions and was assured this was a nonpartisan event that was meant to celebrate ALL 50 states,” wrote McBride, a multi-platinum country music singer, on her Instagram page Thursday night. “Yesterday things started changing and what we were told is, in fact, not what is happening.”

McBride added that she has spent her “entire career singing songs about real people with real issues,” and was “greatly upset” by the prospect that her fans might think she’s “abandoning the meaning behind those songs” by way of her participation in the Trump-backed event.

“I assure you, that is not the case,” McBride wrote.