President Donald Trump declined to rule out compensating people charged with assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, reviving his defense of an "anti-weaponization" fund that his administration had previously said it was abandoning.
In an NBC News interview, Trump was asked directly whether those who attacked law enforcement that day should receive taxpayer-funded payouts. "I wouldn't be inclined to say so, but I have to see it," he replied, leaving the question open rather than closing the door.
The fund in question carries a price tag of nearly $1.8 billion and emerged from a settlement Trump reached after suing the Internal Revenue Service over his leaked tax returns. Its current status has been in flux. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from establishing the fund in May, pending litigation aimed at shutting it down entirely. In early June, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers the administration was "not moving forward with the fund, period." Yet when reporters pressed Trump days later on the matter, he said he would need to consult his lawyers about its status.
The "Meet the Press" interview showed Trump in a more robust posture toward the fund than those earlier statements suggested. "If it was up to me, I'd pay them the kind of money that they deserve," he said, arguing that people involved in the riot had suffered irreparable harm.
Trump framed the fund as redress for what he called political persecution. He claimed that protesters had "been destroyed," lost their jobs, families, and lives, and that some had taken their own lives. "I love the idea," he said of the compensation mechanism, while attributing the prosecutions to what he described as "radical left lunatics" from the Biden administration.
The president returned repeatedly to his assertion that the prosecutions were weaponized. He claimed without evidence that FBI agents had ushered rioters into the Capitol building and that those charged had pleaded guilty only because they faced intimidating sentences. "They pled guilty because they were frightened," he said. When pressed on the lack of evidence for these claims, Trump directed people to watch video footage, though he did not specify which recordings he meant.
The Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, resulted in more than 140 police officers being injured as rioters stormed the building armed with stun guns, bear spray, flagpoles, and other weapons. Some 1,600 people were charged in connection with the event, and approximately 1,100 had been sentenced by the time Trump took office. The president has already granted pardons to roughly 1,500 people involved in the riot, including some who attacked law enforcement.
Matthew Graves, who served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia under the Biden administration, characterized Jan. 6 as "likely the largest single-day, mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation's history."
Trump's remarks about the fund came during an interview conducted in a barn with a metal roof that was pounded by a rainstorm. The setting delayed the interview multiple times, and a technical glitch caused further interruptions. Trump ended the conversation roughly 50 minutes after beginning, appearing visibly frustrated during exchanges about election integrity and media coverage.
Earlier in the same interview, Trump also cast doubt on California election results without providing evidence. He questioned the timeline of vote counting in the state and suggested cheating had occurred, even as ballots were still being tallied days after election day. California's mail-in voting system routinely extends the counting process because ballots postmarked by election day can be received and counted within seven days after the vote. A federal prosecutor announced Friday that multiple election fraud investigations were underway in California.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "Trump's willingness to keep the compensation door cracked open for Capitol attackers who injured police officers signals he's not done reshaping how his administration views Jan. 6, regardless of what his lawyers told Congress."
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