President Donald Trump is proposing to spend $1.78 billion in taxpayer money to pay people who say they’re victims of “weaponization” by federal prosecutors, a move that’s drawing condemnation on both sides of the aisle in Congress.
The proposal is vague on who would qualify for the money or why. However, supporters and opponents alike believe the money is intended to go largely to Trump supporters who were convicted of, or investigated for, assaulting police officers or storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Some North Carolina politicians have begun weighing in on the proposal, including Republican Sen. Thom Tillis — and two of the men seeking to replace him in this year’s election, Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley.
The top Republican in the U.S. Senate has come out against the idea of paying defendants in Jan. 6 cases, as have a few other GOP leaders. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, said he’s “not a big fan” of the idea, NBC News reported. His predecessor U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, similarly called it “a slush fund to pay people who assault cops” and “utterly stupid,” according to The Hill.
Tillis also called the idea “stupid.”
“These people don’t deserve restitution,” Tillis said of those who attacked Congress on Jan. 6, according to CNN. “They — many of them — deserve to be in prison. Some of them deserve the pardon because they were over-prosecuted. But this is, I mean, this is just stupid on stilts.”
North Carolina’s other U.S. senator, Republican Ted Budd, didn’t respond to a request for comment on his stance on the idea, nor does he appear to have commented on it on social media or elsewhere.
Similarly, all 10 Republicans who represent North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives also didn’t respond to WRAL’s requests for comment on their stance.
Trump has since lashed out at Tillis, accusing him of being a fake Republican for opposing the fund. And the Republican Party’s nominee to replace Tillis in the Senate, Whatley, has come out strongly in support of paying the Jan. 6 defendants with taxpayer dollars.
Whatley said at the Brunswick County Republican Party headquarters this week that he supported the fund, calling the Jan. 6 prosecutions a case of “ridiculous persecution” according to Punchbowl News. He again voiced his support for the payments Friday on Fox News, saying that Trump “is absolutely right in saying the government was weaponized against him and his allies.”
Whatley’s campaign didn’t respond to a request from WRAL to further explain his views.
Cooper opposes the payments and criticized Whatley for his support of the idea.
“Instead of helping families who are struggling to afford the basics, DC insider Michael Whatley’s priority is giving almost two billion of your taxpayer dollars to sex predators and rioters who attacked law enforcement on January 6th,” a Cooper spokesman told WRAL in a statement.
While none of the Republicans who represent North Carolina in Congress appear to have commented on the plan, other than Tillis, at least two of the state’s Democratic representatives have weighed in.
Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat who represents Wake County, accused Trump of trying to buy the continued loyalty of violent supporters. “It’s essentially having your tax dollars go to fund his private militia,” she said.
Rep. Valerie Foushee, a Democrat who represents Orange, Durham and Wake counties, called it corruption. “The same man who blames our country’s problems on immigrants is, once again, stealing taxpayer dollars,” she wrote in a statement. “Oligarchs like Trump are the problem in our country and this blatant show of corruption demonstrates that clearly once again.”