Five years ago, a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and assaulted police officers in an attempt to stop the peaceful certification of the 2020 presidential election. Today, some of those individuals are among those most likely to profit from the Trump administration’s new $1.8 billion settlement fund, aimed at compensating the victims of a “weaponized” government in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.
The president and some 1,500 rioters he pardoned upon his return to the White House in 2025 are claiming the same grievance: that they were politically persecuted at the hands of former President Joe Biden’s Justice Department.
The creation of the “anti-weaponization” fund enables those rioters, along with a host of Trump allies, to apply for taxpayer-funded payouts as compensation for their time in the criminal justice system.
And they are eager to get in line.
“This just changed EVERYTHING for January 6 defendants,” Tommy Tatum, who was arrested on felony charges for interfering with a police officer while storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, wrote in a post on X.
Trump’s Department of Justice established the fund as part of a settlement that resolved the president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. The fund, every penny of which comes from taxpayer dollars, establishes a “lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization” to “seek redress,” according to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Although the details of the application process, including who is eligible to apply and the amount of money they may receive, remain vague, Jan. 6 rioters and their lawyers are already celebrating.
Enrique Tarrio, the pardoned Proud Boys leader who was originally convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in planning and orchestrating the Capitol attack, said he would seek a payout shortly after the fund was announced.
Tarrio has long said he was wrongfully prosecuted because he was not present at the Capitol building on Jan. 6, but was found guilty over his role in orchestrating the movements of hundreds of Proud Boys who led the Capitol riots that day.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and experts in political extremism have sounded alarm bells over the potential the fund holds to legitimize claims like Tarrio’s.
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But Trump, who has long maintained that the rioters were wrongfully convicted for the insurrection — a day he refers to as one of “peace” and “love”— has downplayed his role in creating the fund but said he supports it all the same.
“I wasn’t involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation, but this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated,” Trump told reporters Monday. The president has floated the idea of a compensation fund for those prosecuted in connection to Jan. 6 in the past, saying in a 2025 interview with Newsmax that “a lot of the people in government” were considering the idea because they “really like that group of people.”
Many of the Jan. 6 defendants Trump pardoned on the first day of his second term have gone on to be charged or convicted of new crimes. Andrew Paul Johnson, a Florida man who was part of the mass pardons, was sentenced to life in prison months later for the sexual abuse of two preteen girls.
Johnson, according to court documents, attempted to prevent the girls from coming forward with the abuse by bribing them with the millions of dollars of redress he expected to receive from the Trump administration in connection to his Jan. 6 charges.
“Andrew Paul Johnson, a Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by President Trump, molested two children… then tried to pay them off, saying he expected compensation from Trump,” Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, wrote in a post on X. “Is this what this new $1.8 billion slush fund is going to go towards?”
It is not just Jan. 6 rioters who can apply for the fund. Other Trump allies, including his former political adviser Steve Bannon and former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who have both faced prosecution for refusing congressional subpoenas, have indicated they may seek restitution.
In announcing the fund, Blanche made no acknowledgement of the argument that the Justice Department he leads is actively pursuing cases against Trump’s perceived political enemies.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.