GOP senators push back on potential Iran deal as Trump’s decision looms
Center Right
Some Republican lawmakers are pushing back on a potential peace deal with Iran as President Donald Trump mulls renewed airstrikes. The United States and Iran are reportedly close to securing an agreement that extends the ceasefire for 60 days. If finalized, the deal would include the gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and lay […]
President Trump announced that he's "largely negotiated" a deal to end the war in Iran, with the final details to be announced shortly. Following discussions with Arab leaders, "concerning the Islamic Republic of Iran, and all things related to a Memorandum of Understanding pertaining to PEACE," Trump signaled that the deal is imminent.
The post BREAKING: Trump Says Peace Deal Has Been “Largely Negotiated” – Agreement Includes Reopening of the Strait of Hormuz appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
President Donald Trump said that a peace deal with Iran has been “largely negotiated” and he plans to announce an agreement shortly that would reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) revealed Friday that House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee voted to make themselves eligible to collect from President Donald Trump's $1.8 billion January 6th slush fund, triggering immediate outrage online.Levin took to X to announce that he had introduced an amendment to block members of Congress, the president, and the vice president from collecting any money from the controversial fund unless a court specifically orders it. Every Republican on the committee voted against his amendment, according to his video."Every Republican present in the House Appropriations Committee last night voted to make THEMSELVES eligible to collect from Trump's $1.8 billion January 6th slush fund. I am not making this up," Levin wrote in the caption.The California Democrat said the vote allows MAGA Republicans in Congress, along with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, to position themselves as victims of "government weaponization" and collect settlement funds out of the pool Trump created."That is exactly the kind of self-dealing corruption the American people are sick of," Levin wrote.The reaction was immediate. Former GOP insider Tara Setmayer reposted Levin's thread with a single line."Republicans in Congress did WHAT???" Setmayer wrote.Media producer Roy Bellamy offered a different take."I hope this ends up like a class action suit and everyone gets 35 cents," Bellamy wrote.Disability rights advocate James Tate kept it simple."Republicans love stealing tax dollars," Tate wrote on X.Republicans love stealing tax dollars. https://t.co/J4FnwMpQmy— James Tate (@JamesTate121) May 23, 2026
The creation of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” at the Department of Justice may have shocked a lot of people, but not Paul Figley, a legal scholar and former DOJ staffer who has spent years warning that taxpayer money could be used by an administration for political ends in just this way.The fund, the result of a settlement of legal claims by Donald Trump and his family against the IRS, aims to compensate those who “suffered weaponization and lawfare” at the hands of the federal government. It has already been called a “slush fund” by the New York Times editorial board, which noted – as many have – that it’s likely to pay much of its US$1.8 billion funding to Trump allies who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The money comes from what’s called the Judgment Fund, set up in the Department of Treasury by Congress in the 1950s to pay legal judgments and settlements involving the federal government. In doing so, Congress gave away a portion of its foundational, constitutional role: The power to control government spending. Figley, who worked at the Department of Justice and is also an emeritus professor of legal rhetoric at American University Washington College of Law, has warned Congress and others that by putting decisions about such huge payouts in the hands of the executive branch, the fund would inevitably be hijacked for political purposes. Naomi Schalit, The Conversation’s politics and legal affairs editor, spoke with Figley. What is the Judgment Fund, and why was it created?The Judgment Fund is a permanent, indefinite appropriation that Congress established to pay most judgments and settlements against the federal government. Prior to 1956, whenever a judgment or settlement was agreed upon or finalized, Congress would have to appropriate money to pay it. That meant the administration and Congress would have to go through kind of a karaoke: “Here’s a new settlement, here’s why it should be approved.” “OK, we approve it.” And it took up a lot of time and didn’t produce much good effect. So the old General Accounting Office recommended that Congress set up a system that would pay some claims automatically, and in 1956, Congress established the Judgment Fund. It allows payment of settlements and judgments if those payments were final and not authorized or provided for by some other legally available appropriation. Former Department of Justice lawyer Paul Figley spent years warning that presidents could use the little-known Judgment Fund as a political piggy bank. Congress essentially handed over responsibility for paying for settlements and judgments, which was taking up a lot of time, to the executive branch?Yes, the Department of Justice would do the paperwork and say this is final, or this is an appropriate settlement, send that to Treasury, Treasury then certifies that it was properly documented, and then orders the payment.From the constitutional perspective, it appears that Congress was getting rid of an annoying thing that it had to do, but wasn’t it also giving away its power of the purse?Yes, but only in a limited way to begin with. When the Judgment Fund was first established, any settlement or judgment that could go through the process had to be less than US$100,000. That worked so well that Congress increased the amount a couple of times, and then ultimately in 1977 said there’s no cap. It’s a permanent indefinite appropriation, and once it was established, nobody ever has to go back to Congress to ask that it be updated or refilled. It works automatically. You’ve written and given testimony about concerns you have with the Judgment Fund, over quite a few years and spanning several administrations. What are those concerns?The concern is that under our system, Congress should be responsible for – and is responsible for – appropriating money.Are you worried that this fund can be abused?It has been. For many, many years, it wasn’t abused very often. Occasionally, it was used for political purposes in the foreign policy context. President George H. W. Bush used it in 1991 to settle a claim with Iran for arms that had not been delivered. The Clinton administration used it to settle a similar claim with Pakistan in 1998. The Obama administration secretly paid Iran $1.7 billion for arms that the U.S. had not delivered, and $1.3 billion of that came from the Judgment Fund. Those all had a political context, and while they were arguably good decisions, they were decisions that, absent the Judgment Fund, would have had to go through Congress and have money appropriated after, perhaps, debate and discussion. The Obama administration also went much further in litigation involving claims of civil rights violations by the Department of Agriculture. The Obama administration’s use of the Judgment Fund in class action suits for discrimination in Department of Agriculture civil loan programs struck me as really bad policy.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) turned heads on Saturday after openly questioning why the U.S. war against Iran "started to begin with,” despite having personally lobbied for the United States to launch it.Graham’s remarks come amid reports that President Donald Trump – who Graham notably didn’t name in his comments – is “close to a deal to end the war” with Iranian officials, according to a claim from Axios’ Barak Ravid on Saturday. The prospect of a deal appeared to trouble Graham, however, at least without first crippling Iran's military capacity beyond the point of recovery.“This combination of Iran being perceived as having the ability to terrorize the Strait in perpetuity and the ability [to] inflict massive damage to Gulf oil infrastructure is a major shift of the balance of power in the region and over time will be a nightmare for Israel,” Graham wrote in a social media post on X.“Also, it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with if these perceptions are accurate. I personally am a skeptic of the idea that Iran cannot be denied the ability to terrorize the Strait and the region cannot protect itself against Iranian military capability.”Graham was widely mocked back in January after appearing “legitimately depressed” in the wake of Trump’s decision back in January to hold off on striking Iran. In March, it was revealed that Graham had “coached” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on how to convince Trump to bomb Iran.For Graham to now question why the war he lobbied to start was launched “to begin with” caused concern among some onlookers.“Reading Senator Graham's tweets is always really exciting because you really have no idea if you're getting utterly sycophantic sane washing of POTUS, or, entirely accurate and cogent geopolitical analysis,” wrote journalist Matt Gurney in a social media post on X to his more than 52,000 followers.Journalist Chuck Todd noted how Graham was “trying so hard not to use the word ‘Trump’” in his remarks, writing in a social media post on X to his nearly 2 million followers, and political commentator Tommy Vietor offered Graham some advice.“File this one under: things you should’ve thought through before starting the war,” Vietor wrote to his nearly 540,000 followers on X.Graham has long been among the most vocal advocates for a U.S. strike on Iran, consistent with his long record of backing military action against other nations throughout his career, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mexico, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela, among other nations.Reading Senator Graham's tweets is always really exciting because you really have no idea if you're getting utterly sycophantic sane washing of POTUS, or, entirely accurate and cogent geopolitical analysis. https://t.co/3w29R1Gtoq— Matt Gurney (@mattgurney) May 23, 2026
