WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

They're not doing this fund.

Who knows what else they would do?

At this point, they seem to have paused it.

They have not walked away from it.

Who knows what else they would do?

The Justice Department says it will abide by a federal judge's ruling against the pot of money, many in Congress, called Trump's slush fund.

It's Tuesday, June 2nd, and this is here and now anytime.

From NPR and WBUR Boston, I'm Chris Bentley. A little later on the show, we'll hear about a man in immigration detention who has joined a hunger strike over what he says are deplorable conditions.

I believe that he had been not eating for approximately a week and a half, like so many others that are currently there.

That story coming up in about five minutes.

But first, the Trump administration is backing off a bit on its plan to give nearly $1.8 billion of taxpayer money to people it says were victims of political prosecution by the

Biden and Obama administrations. That is after a federal judge put a hold on the so-called

anti-weaponization fund on Friday. A group of 35 former judges is going even further seeking

to reopen the case that led to the settlement

creating this fund. That was a settlement between President Trump and his own government

over the release of his tax returns. We spoke with one of the judges calling that deal a, quote,

fraud on the court. Nancy Gertner is a retired federal judge who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.

She's now at Harvard.

And she told Scott Tong, the fund was illegal from the start.

There's a statute that says that you can call on the treasury for a settlement so that you don't,

every time you settle a claim against the government, you don't have to rush to Congress.

...