The Trump administration announced Monday the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate allies of the Republican president who believe they have been unjustly investigated and prosecuted. Democrats and government watchdogs are criticizing this arrangement as “corrupt” and unconstitutional, according to the Associated Press.
The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is part of a settlement resolving President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leak of his tax returns. It will allow people who believe they were targeted for prosecution for political purposes to apply for payouts.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the it creates “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.” Blanche is expected to be pressed on the fund when he testifies Tuesday on Capitol Hill about the Justice Department budget.
Nearly 100 Democrats in the House of Representatives signed onto a legal brief urging a judge to block the resolution. They said it would unjustly enrich people close to the president with taxpayer dollars and open the door to meritless claims of political persecution.
Donald Sherman, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said, “This is one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.”
The Justice Department (DOJ) did not name specific individuals who might stand to benefit from the fund but said there were no “partisan requirements” for applicants and that anyone who believes they’ve been unfairly persecuted could seek a payout as well as an apology. A five-member commission appointed by Blanche will oversee the fund.
At the White House on Monday afternoon, Trump said the fund was dedicated to “reimbursing people who were horribly treated.” When asked if individuals who committed violence on January 6th should receive compensation from the fund, Trump said, “It’ll all be dependent on a committee… I didn’t do this deal. It was told to me yesterday.”
Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said, “This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes.”
The lawsuit, filed in Florida earlier this year, alleged that a previous leak of his and the Trump Organization’s confidential tax records caused him reputational harm and tarnished his business reputation.
In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about Trump and others to two news outlets between 2018 and 2020. The 2020 New York Times report found Trump paid $750 in federal income tax the year he first entered the White House, and no income tax at all some years, thanks to reported colossal losses.