President Donald Trump looks on during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on May 27, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund has attracted scrutiny for its corruption potential, even splitting congressional Republicans who rarely confront President Donald Trump’s decisions and policies.
Among the top concerns: Could pardoned Jan. 6, 2021, riot defendants who assaulted police officers claim a slice of the pie and essentially be rewarded for committing political violence?
Advocates are also legally challenging the fund’s structure that will conceal details from the public, including claimants’ names and amounts paid out.
Nikhel Sus, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, otherwise known as CREW, which has filed suit against the fund, told States Newsroom the administration’s order is a “flagrant power grab of congressional authority.”
The fund, established by the Department of Justice to settle Trump’s multibillion dollar lawsuit against the IRS, has also complicated Senate Republicans’ plans to pass a simple majority immigration enforcement funding package. Some GOP senators are withholding votes unless guardrails for the fund are included in the legislation.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Republican senators on Capitol Hill on May 21 to defend the fund, but many GOP lawmakers left unconvinced and with multiple questions remaining.
Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters the fund is “stupid on stilts” and resembles “tyranny.”
Others were sweating out questions at town halls during the congressional recess.
“I do not think one penny of any fund should ever go to any January 6 insurrectionist that was in the Capitol on January 6, 2021 … I want to be very clear … I clearly think Congress needs to have an oversight role in this before I can sign off or support this,” U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., said at a town hall in Norfolk, Nebraska, on May 26.
What is the “anti-weaponization” fund?
In exchange for Trump and his family dropping a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for the 2019 leak of tax returns, the DOJ ordered the establishment of a settlement fund in the amount of $1.776 billion — a nod to the country’s founding.
As part of the arrangement, Trump also agreed to drop an administrative claim for damages related to what Blanche described as an “unlawful” FBI raid of the president’s Mar-a-Lago residence, part of the Biden administration’s case against Trump for allegedly hoarding classified documents after leaving office.
Trump also agreed to drop a claim for damages related to the DOJ’s 2019 inquiry into Russian meddling in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Blanche introduced the fund on May 18 as a path to restitution for “victims of lawfare.”
“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Blanche said in a press release.
The fund will be led by five commissioners chosen by the attorney general, one of them in consultation with Congress. The president has the power to remove any member, according to the DOJ.
The department maintains the fund is nonpartisan. In addition to money, the DOJ will also issue formal apologies to eligible claimants, according to officials.
Who is trying to limit or shut down the fund?
House Democrats tried to intervene in the president’s IRS case settlement, but U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams dismissed the case on Trump’s terms. Williams was appointed to the bench in the Southern District of Florida in 2010 by President Barack Obama.
On May 27, nearly three dozen former federal judges urged Williams to reopen the case, arguing the Trump administration “deceived” the court by not sharing with the judge details of the “anti-weaponization” fund.
Further, the judges argued, the DOJ also claims the settlement forever absolves Trump and his family from tax audits and any other claims by a federal agency.
“The parties to this case are using this lawsuit as the legal justification for these actions,” the judges argued.
Legislative proposals have also popped up in the House and Senate.
A bipartisan bill from Reps. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., both up for re-election in swing districts, proposes to ban the use of federal money to pay claims submitted to the “anti-weaponization” fund.
“The Bipartisan Transparency for American Taxpayers Act ensures federal funds cannot be used for this fund without the transparency, oversight, and legal safeguards the American people deserve. Taxpayer dollars will not become a discretionary payout fund. Transparency is not optional. Accountability is not negotiable,” Fitzpatrick said in a press release.
Suozzi characterized the arrangement as a “slush fund to pay off January 6th criminals and other maladjusted minions!”
When pressed during a May 19 Senate hearing on whether Jan. 6 defendants who were convicted of assaulting police officers would be eligible for the fund, Blanche said “anybody in this country can apply” and final decisions will be made by the fund’s commissioners.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., announced plans to introduce painful amendments when and if the Senate GOP brings its immigration enforcement funding bill to the floor.
Van Hollen said he will call for votes on an amendment to block payment to Jan. 6 defendants who have been convicted of violent crimes and sexual abuse of children.
The Maryland senator also said he will introduce an amendment that would prohibit members of Congress from receiving payouts.
“And as it currently stands, Members of Congress have the chance to benefit from this corrupt scheme. If Republicans won’t put an end to this fund entirely, they should at least join with us to bar Members of Congress from cashing in on it,” Van Hollen said May 21 in a written statement.
Who is suing?
Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the fund.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Washington Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, argued in federal court that the pardoned rioters could use payout money to organize.
“In the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century, President Donald J. Trump has created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name,” they argued in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Legal advocacy groups, including CREW, Democracy Forward and Common Cause have also challenged the fund in court.
Through the order, the administration has granted itself “final unreviewable authority to disperse nearly $1.8 billion in money that Congress did not appropriate for that purpose to people that they subjectively determine are victims of so-called lawfare or weaponization,” Sus, of CREW, said in an interview.
The fund’s structure also flouts transparency laws, Sus said, not least of which includes moving $1.776 billion from the government’s legal judgment fund in a single transaction to a separate, unaccountable pot of money.
As the law stands now, the Department of Treasury publicly updates a website at least once per month with judgment award amounts paid to claimants by the U.S. government.
By withdrawing one lump sum, “they are wholly circumventing disclosure law that Congress passed specifically for that purpose to require disclosure for each settlement,” said Sus, whose organization filed the complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
CREW also argues DOJ’s order is arbitrary and capricious.
“I think arbitrarily picking 1776 as the number for their (fund) valuation is the definition of an arbitrary precious action — like they just did it because they thought it was cool,” he said.
“And that’s not how the government’s supposed to operate. They’re supposed to actually consider the facts, they’re supposed to have a reasoned explanation for why they’re doing things.”
Another group of plaintiffs are being represented in Virginia by the legal advocacy groups Democracy Forward and Common Cause.
Among the plaintiffs are Andrew Floyd, a former federal Jan. 6 case prosecutor who was fired by the DOJ in June 2025, and Joseph Caravello, a California university professor who was charged with felony assault on a federal officer after protesting an immigration raid last summer. A jury acquitted Caravello in April.
The nine-count lawsuit alleges in part the fund violates the plaintiffs’ First and Fifth Amendment rights, and violates the authority of Congress.
The fund “does not offer benefits to victims of ideological targeting by Democrats and Republicans alike; instead, it offers benefits to those who have espoused views that were, or were perceived to be, oppositional to Democratic administrations, but not to those who have espoused views that were, or were perceived to be, oppositional to Republican administrations,” according to the complaint filed in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Juan Salinas II of the Nebraska Examiner contributed to this report.
Hence then, the article about how trump s giant slush fund sparked lawsuits roiled republicans and revived jan 6 was published today ( ) and is available on NC news line ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( How Trump’s giant ‘slush fund’ sparked lawsuits, roiled Republicans and revived Jan. 6 )
Also on site :
- ‘We are not your piggy bank’ – US lawmaker to Zelensky
- Walmart's ‘Cute’ $12 Swim Shorts Are Stretchy, ‘Flattering,’ and Available in 19 Colors Ahead of Summer
- Tony Blair emerges a fake ‘savior’ of UK’s Labour Party