A federal judge indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s proposed nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund on Friday and demanded that the administration provide a sworn statement within a week that it will not try to go ahead with creating it in the future.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s decision demonstrates a more punitive attitude toward the fund than Senate Republicans, who have made a fuss about the effort but proven unwilling to take binding action to block it.
Brinkema is right to be suspicious and demand a clear disavowal.
Of course, that the fund is even a possibility is astonishing. It would use the pretext of compensating people treated unfairly by the federal government to effectively act as a slush fund for Trump’s political allies and potentially be used to pay out violent Jan. 6 rioters who seek compensation for being penalized by the government.
Senate Republicans recognized it as so obviously politically toxic that in May they revolted en masse through public objections and an acrimonious two-hour meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, described it as “one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.”
The Trump administration temporarily retreated, but declined to decisively rule out reviving the fund in the future. Blanche said, “We’re not moving forward with the fund. Period.” But he refused to commit to the promise in writing when asked to do so by Democratic lawmakers. And Trump continued to praise the idea of the payout fund as “beautiful” and “important.”
Senate Republicans had an opportunity to muzzle Trump on the fund and put the issue to rest with amendments to an immigration bill they passed earlier in June — but in a remarkable display of subservience, chose not to do so. Perhaps they hoped they could take Blanche at his word that the fund was fizzling out while avoiding direct confrontation with Trump.
Brinkema is therefore stepping in where a Republican-controlled Congress has failed. The fund is still being challenged in court by a pro-democracy group and, according to The Washington Post, at a hearing in Virginia on Friday, Brinkema “forcefully rejected the government’s arguments that the case was moot, citing Trump’s praising of the idea and acting attorney general Todd Blanche’s unwillingness to say under the penalty of perjury that the administration will not try to stand it up in the future.”
She said, according to the Post, “We don’t have the kind of absolute certainty that this fund wouldn’t rear its head” again, and that the “public interest in this case is very, very strong in my view.”
The Post notes that Brinkema’s latest decision came after Justice Department officials had called off the fund in court filings and argued the issue was moot.
Brinkema is right to be suspicious and demand a clear disavowal. The Atlantic, citing eight people familiar with the fund, reported on Thursday that Justice Department officials and people close to the White House “indicated that the payout idea has not actually been scrapped,” and that “officials are exploring whether elements of the fund can be reactivated while also examining alternative arrangements to make sure loyalists get compensated.”
Brinkema was right to try to find a way to preempt these efforts. At the same time, it’s not clear what shape any alternative arrangements might take and whether they could circumvent a block on the fund.
There are also other ways that Jan. 6 defendants might be able to get compensation. As Anthony Coley, the former director of the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs in the Biden administration, wrote recently for MS NOW, hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants have filed claims against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. This policy acts as a “back door” to pay out Jan. 6 rioters through a process hidden from public view. “A DOJ run by the president’s former defense lawyers can still settle such claims one by one, on its own authority, with no public hearing and no vote,” Coley wrote.
Coley also pointed out that Congress has a few options to pass legislation to bar that from happening. But given the GOP’s track record so far on opposing Trump, there’s little reason for optimism.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.