The Trump Justice Department's ambitious plan to distribute nearly $1.8 billion to alleged victims of federal "weaponization" has hit a wall of legal challenges and bipartisan rebuke, with courts moving to block the fund and prominent Republicans calling it corrupt.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the anti-weaponization fund in May to settle a lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. But the scheme has drawn fire from ex-Justice Department officials, federal judges, and lawmakers across party lines who say it amounts to an unconstitutional slush fund designed to reward Trump allies and insurrectionists.
The collapse accelerated rapidly this week. A federal judge in Virginia temporarily blocked further fund disbursals on May 29, citing a lawsuit brought by a former January 6 prosecutor and others claiming Trump administration retaliation. A hearing is scheduled for June 12. The Justice Department announced Monday it would comply with the court order. By Monday evening, Axios reported the fund was "dead for now," citing two unnamed sources.
The fund's structure drew particular scorn. Blanche would appoint five board members who would decide payouts, with Trump holding the power to fire any of them without cause. No payments have been issued since the fund remains under judicial review.
Former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, who served under President George H.W. Bush, was blunt in his assessment: "It's outright theft." He argued Trump and his team were "going to give money away to his supporters who will claim some sort of personal abuse when they, in fact, have been the abusers."
The fund's troubling addendum has triggered separate legal action. Along with settling the IRS lawsuit, the deal would block the agency from auditing Trump, his sons, and their businesses. A bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges filed a motion on May 27 asking a Miami federal judge to reopen Trump's original IRS lawsuit and investigate whether the settlement involved fraud. The judge granted the request on May 29, determining the court may have been deceived and the deal was "premised on deception."
Michael Bromwich, former Justice Department Inspector General, called the entire arrangement "crazy and corrupt." He criticized the vague definition of who qualifies as a victim, the complete lack of transparency around disbursements, and what he described as "an attempted political payoff to criminals" that would benefit January 6 rioters who injured police officers.
Trump has vigorously defended the fund, claiming he is "helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden administration." When pressed on the court block, he told ABC News: "We are subject to the courts. If a court doesn't allow it, what can you do?"
The criticism extends beyond Democrats. Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the fund's premise "stupid on stilts" and termed it a "payout pot for punks." He demanded that "whoever did it should be fired." Former Vice President Mike Pence labeled the fund "deeply offensive" given that some beneficiaries could include January 6 rioters, and urged the Trump administration to "drop the idea entirely."
In Congress, Republican Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Democrat Tom Suozzi of New York are drafting legislation to kill the fund outright. Two Capitol police officers who were attacked by rioters on January 6 have filed their own lawsuit seeking to block it.
Legal scholars have warned the fund poses a systemic threat. Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney for eastern Michigan and now a law professor at the University of Michigan, said awarding payments to convicted Capitol rioters "will send a message that vigilante violence is welcome as long as it aids the party in power. This is antithetical to the rule of law." She also slammed the IRS addendum as a "gift, pure and simple," bearing no relationship to Trump's original tax return leak complaint.
Some of Trump's former adversaries have spotted opportunity. Andrew McCabe, the FBI deputy director Trump vilified during his first term, is "strongly considering" filing a claim, according to his attorney Bromwich. Other former prosecutors and Capitol riot investigators are weighing applications as well.
Author James Rodriguez: "This fund was dead the moment Trump's own party started calling it corrupt, and the courts agreed."
Comments