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Zeteo U.S. Politics

‘Just Do It Anyway’: Inside Trump’s Plans to Pay His Allies, Slush Fund or Not

Here’s how Team Trump is planning to sneak through his most shamelessly corrupt move yet.

Asawin Suebsaeng's avatar
Andrew Perez's avatar
Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez
Jun 18, 2026
∙ Paid
Donald Trump gestures as he arrives for the G7 summit, in Evian, eastern France, on June 15, 2026. Photo by Isabel Infantes/Pool/AFP via Getty Images.

Shortly after Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund of taxpayer money was announced by the Justice Department last month, it triggered such furious backlash that the administration was forced to at least pretend it was pausing the project, with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche claiming that his department was “not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Right around that time, three sources familiar with the situation tell Zeteo, senior Trump officials immediately got to work on alternate plans for delivering public funds to the president’s allies – even if the new “fund” didn’t technically exist on paper.

According to two of the sources, Trump himself had a succinct reply, when the topic of political or legal roadblocks to his slush fund came up in recent conversations with close advisers: “Just do it anyway.”

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