Now that Donald Trump has created his very own political slush fund with $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to hand out to allies, the very least that Democrats can do right now is this: Do everything possible to force Republicans to vote on it—over and over again. Make them defend this brazen corruption at a time when Trump’s approval rating on the economy is in the toilet and the country is awash in deep and widespread economic dissatisfaction.Democrats might take this step sooner rather than later. Representative Jamie Raskin tells me that House Democrats plan to introduce a bill that would block the fund and other future efforts like it. While it’s unclear exactly how this will play out in each chamber, Raskin says the bill will have the full support of the Democratic caucus and the leadership—and that Democrats will pursue a discharge petition to get it to the floor around the GOP leadership.“We need to put Republicans on the spot as to whether or not they are going to endorse this rank corruption, or whether they are going to stand up for basic constitutional values,” Raskin said in an interview, adding that he will pursue “straightforward legislation to block this outrageous misappropriation.”This could prove politically potent in unexpected ways, and Trump’s vile tirade on Monday about his heist shows why. The fund—which the Justice Department is creating pursuant to its “settlement” of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS—will be dispensed to alleged victims of government “weaponization.” When a reporter asked Trump why taxpayer funds should go to the January 6 rioters, it set him off.“This is reimbursing people that were horribly treated,” Trump replied angrily. “They’ve been in some cases imprisoned wrongly. They’ve paid legal fees that they didn’t have. They’ve gone bankrupt. Their lives have been destroyed. And they turned out to be right.”Emphasis mine. In short, Trump admits his fund is designed to grant taxpayer money to the January 6 rioters for the expressly declared purpose of rewarding them for trying to overturn a lawful election on his behalf with mob violence. Let Republicans defend that.This whole fiasco is ripe for congressional intervention. The slush fund has been created by Trump’s settlement of his anti-IRS lawsuit—which was itself thoroughly bogus—and the $1.8 billion will be drawn from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, which pays people who have actually won legitimate claims against the government.That loot will go into a new fund—which experts widely condemn as illegal—and this one is effectively controlled by Trump while operating outside any government procedures. That means no transparency into the payments—and no congressional oversight. The cash will apparently go to whomever Trump wants, since he can fire the fund’s board members for any reason.How did this happen? To oversimplify, by dismissing the IRS lawsuit as part of this deal, Trump essentially got around the judge who’d been hearing that lawsuit. And because no one has clear standing to sue to block the new fund—save, perhaps, for Congress, but only if it acts as a whole body, which won’t happen under GOP control—the “settlement” payment to the new fund probably can’t be stopped in court. So Raskin’s proposal will seek to do two things, he tells me: First, block this fund by legislating a ban on the use of this particular money for Trump’s stated purpose. Second, prevent more funds of this kind from being set up in the future. One way would be to clarify the statute creating the Treasury Judgment Fund so it expressly says no money can be awarded to people who don’t prevail with a valid claim against the government via lawful processes, Raskin says.“Trump would like to turn the entire federal budget into a collection of political slush funds,” Raskin told me. “We want to get Congress to take responsibility over our spending power back.”The goal, Raskin said, is “to pass legislation blocking any use of money in this way.” A spokesperson for Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries confirms that he’s supportive of Raskin’s legislative effort.Raskin says he believes “every Democrat in our caucus” will be behind this. He confirmed that Democrats still believe the new fund is unconstitutional—because its expenditures weren’t approved by Congress—and will still try to contest it in court while also moving forward with legislation. Will Raskin’s bill ever get a vote? House GOP leaders will block it. But Democrats recently had success forcing a vote on aid to Ukraine using a discharge petition, which gets a bill to the floor if 218 members support it.