Justice Department halts $1.8 billion anti-weaponisation fund following judge’s ruling

Washington — The Justice Department said Monday that it will stop work on the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund following a district judge’s decision temporarily blocking the establishment of the program.

The move comes after the plan earned intense pushback from Republicans in Congress that threatened to imperil the GOP agenda on Capitol Hill.

The Justice Department said on X that it would abide by the judge’s ruling that halted work on the fund, effectively shelving plans for it for now.

“The Department of Justice disagrees strongly with the decision on the Anti-Weaponization Fund put forth by the United States District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, wherein the Court stated that, under no circumstances, may the Department of Justice proceed with the Anti-Weaponization Fund recently established in order to make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to so many people,” the department said on X. 

It continued: “This Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise. The Department will abide by the Court’s ruling.”

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema issued an order on Friday that temporarily prevents the Justice Department from moving forward with the fund to “ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed” from it while she considered whether to issue longer-term relief.

Brinkema is overseeing a lawsuit brought by a former federal prosecutor who was involved in cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, and several other plaintiffs. Her order prohibits the Justice Department from “taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation” of the program for now, including transferring money to the fund, considering any claims submitted and disbursing any payments. A hearing is set for June 12.

The DOJ fund

The Justice Department announced the fund as part of a settlement of a civil suit brought by President Trump against the IRS stemming from the release of his tax returns by a former government contractor. The fund aimed to provide taxpayer-funded payouts to individuals who alleged the federal government had been “weaponized” against them. 

But the program drew intense scrutiny when allies of Mr. Trump’s, including some who were charged for their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, expressed interest in submitting claims. The president granted clemency to roughly 1,500 defendants convicted for their actions on Jan. 6 on his first day back in office and has long claimed they were treated unfairly.

The decision not to contest Brinkema’s ruling reflects the headwinds the administration has been facing from lawmakers in both parties who had significant reservations about the program. House Speaker Mike Johnson met with Mr. Trump at the White House on Monday to discuss the fund, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting.

The pushback came to a head during a Senate Republican conference meeting last month, in which senators voiced their concerns with the fund to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Senators said the closed-door meeting grew intense. Members expressed frustration about the fund and its timing, which ultimately led GOP leaders to scrap plans to vote on funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Democrats threatened to force votes on the fund, putting Republicans in a difficult position as they tried to move forward on the funding for DHS. With some of their members likely to join Democrats in opposing the program, Senate Republicans had considered putting guardrails on the fund into the DHS bill itself, or otherwise finding avenues to dictate how the fund would operate and who might receive payments from it. Some also wanted to prevent those who assaulted law enforcement from being compensated.

As the Senate returned from a weeklong recess Monday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pledged that Democrats would launch a coordinated effort to quash the fund. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said at the Capitol on Monday that he spoke to the president about the fund over the weekend.

“I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” Thune told reporters. 

Mr. Trump and his GOP allies have long complained that the Biden administration unfairly targeted them through the justice system. The president defended the fund last month, saying he was helping people “who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized” Biden administration receive “justice.”

Separate from the political blowback, the “anti-weaponization” fund also faces legal scrutiny on other fronts. Several lawsuits challenging the program were filed soon after it was announced, and on Friday, the federal judge who was overseeing Mr. Trump’s suit against the IRS ordered the president to answer questions related to his decision to dismiss his case as part of the settlement agreement with his own administration and whether it should be reopened.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who sits on the district court in South Florida, was responding to a request from 35 former federal judges to reopen the case. The retired judges argued that the settlement, which ended Mr. Trump’s civil lawsuit against the IRS, “is a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the court.”

Williams wrote in a brief order that the judges made “grievous allegations” that Mr. Trump voluntarily dismissed the case “solely to avoid judicial scrutiny” of his lawsuit, which they said was filed solely to serve as the springboard for the settlement.