Jasmine Crockett is yet again calling out the Trump administration, this time over a highly contentious billion-dollar fund that Trump has created to pay his supporters and allies with taxpayer dollars. Crockett is joining the many voices criticizing the administration for providing reparations for racists but not for Black Americans and rewarding white supremacists while prosecuting groups that fight against them.
Crockett calls out Trump administration over ‘slush fund’ for ‘white supremacists’
Rep. Crockett (D-Texas) used her time during a recent committee hearing to criticize the creation by the Trump administration of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate individuals who Trump claims were unfairly targeted by the previous administration. “The Proud Boys are freaking white supremacists. Neo-Nazis are too. And this president, who loves to coddle white supremacists, has decided that they should be given checks,” Crockett said. Pointing to these groups’ participation in the Jan. 6 riot, Crockett said that “this slush fund that they keep talking about is specifically to give them money.” Crockett noted that white supremacy is being ignored despite multiple murders and mass shootings conducted by white supremacist ideology. Rather, Crockett argued, “this country still hasn’t thought that reparations made sense for Black folk in this country, but at the same time, they’ve decided that people that are in organizations that are absolutely white supremacy organizations should get our tax dollars because they decided to tear apart or attempt to tear apart our democracy”
Controversy as Trump uses government to settle his own lawsuit against IRS
Crockett’s condemnation amplifies that of many critics who have argued that the Trump program is a slush fund to give taxpayer dollars to Trump’s allies and supporters, such as those who were previously convicted for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection. The fund is being created as part of a settlement by the Justice Department over a lawsuit filed by Trump, who sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax return information to news organizations in 2019 and 2020. Despite IRS lawyers believing that the agency could successfully defend itself against Trump’s lawsuit, interim U.S. Attorney General and Trump loyalist Todd Blanche instead reached a settlement deal that essentially gave the Trump family and businesses immunity from audits over their past dealings, as well as creating the $1.8 billion fund. In Washington, anger among Democrats and Republicans over the fund has derailed attempts by Trump to push through his latest budget bill. Despite concerns over the deal, Blanche has defended the settlement and has refused to rule out whether members of the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers or those who attacked police officers on Jan. 6 could be awarded money from the fund. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has already said that he plans to apply for money from the fund, speculating that he should be awarded between $2 million and $5 million.
Failing to address white supremacists while targeting those who fight them
The context of Crockett’s criticism was a hearing over yet another controversial policy from Trump’s Justice Department: the prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Justice Department indicted the SPLC in April over millions of dollars in secret payments that the organization made to members of white supremacist organizations over a number of years. Although the substance of the case focuses on whether the organization deceived its donors by concealing the payments, Blanche and others within the Trump camp have used the indictment to accuse the SPLC of “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.” The organization has defended the payments as cultivating informants who provided information on white supremacist activities to the organization, which used this knowledge to fight these organizations in cooperation with law enforcement agencies. Crockett called out the GOP for its misguided priorities. “We still haven’t had a real hearing on the rise of white supremacist violence, the lives lost, or the extremist groups empowered by dangerous Republican rhetoric,” Crockett posted on social media along with video of her comments from the hearing. “But somehow, Republicans found time to hold a hearing claiming the Southern Poverty Law Center is ‘manufacturing hate.’”
In the span of a few minutes, Rep. Crockett laid out the absurdity and hypocrisy of rewarding white supremacists and attacking organizations that fight against white supremacy, and doing it all in the name of justice. As Trump has seemingly created a reparations fund for Jan. 6 rioters, Crockett’s criticisms represent anger that is growing on both sides of the political aisle.