The hand that raised the riot flag is now extended for the payout. Todd, the police officer in the Capitol basement still has glass in his eye from January 6. His jaw is wired shut. He cannot eat soup. You sit at the desk. You have the money. You have the fund. You have not said no.
On Tuesday, the Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to address questions about the Anti-Weaponization Fund, a $1.776 billion pool established to compensate individuals who believe they have been politically targeted. Senator Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, asked directly whether those who carried out violence during the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol would be eligible for payouts. Blanche replied that anyone could apply if they believed they were a victim of weaponization. He refused to say whether he would direct the five-member commission he is tasked with appointing to restrict the fund to individuals convicted of violence. The commission, appointed solely by the attorney general, faces no statutory directive to disqualify those who committed violent acts. With that single refusal to draw a line, Blanche has turned the Justice Department from the agency that investigated the assault on the Capitol into the agency that processes the assailants’ claim forms. The administration’s policy on the ledger of harm has already demonstrated its architecture, but the men in the hallways are no longer waiting for policy — they are suing to block the payouts your own administration is trying to force on them, and Tuesday’s testimony was the confirmation.
Todd, listen to what your refusal to draw a line does. The police officer you are willing to compensate alongside the men who broke him is named. His name is on the hospital discharge papers. His mandible was fractured by a baton in the Concourse Level bathroom. The paramedics in the stairwell packed his wounds and told him to apply for disability. He is at home now. He cannot open his mouth to bite into an apple. His jaw is wired shut.
The metallic taste under your tongue when you raise the coffee cup this morning is not the coffee. It is the blood from the lip of the officer who stood between you and the fire. You cannot wash it out. Your throat closes when you swallow. It is the exact same spasm that the officer faces when the surgeon adjusts the wires on his jaw and tells him he will never bite on the left side again without pain. Your shoulders ache at bedtime as if you have been carrying weight. You were not carrying anything. The officer was carrying the door until his ribs gave out. The cold on the back of your neck is the damp sweat of the officer who sat in the ambulance because the police chief said the rioter’s lawyers had already begun drafting motions to block an internal investigation.
You are a small man, Todd, with large hands on the lever, telling senators that money can fix what violence was designed to break.
What would you say, Todd, if it were your daughter who needed to bite into an apple and could not? If she were in the hospital bed with the wires and the union said the rioter’s lawyers had filed a motion to block the bill? Your daughter is asleep in the suburban house. Her jaw works fine. The officer is awake. He is staring at the ceiling. He knows the government just voted to pay the man who broke him.
You have taken the public treasury and turned it into a subsidy for domestic assault. You treat the violent desecration of the seat of government as a mere administrative case load. You talk of guidelines and effective commissioners to soothe lawmakers, but the administrative friction is the cover for a process that cannot distinguish between the rule of law and its subversion. The Justice Department, in its former life, was the place that investigated the assault on the Capitol; it is now the place that manages the application process for the assailants.
We are not asking you for an explanation of policy. We are asking you to look at the paramedic’s log. We are asking you to read the bill for the dental reconstruction that the union will not cover. We are laughing, Todd. We are laughing because you think this is a question about guidelines. You think you can put a commission between the blood on the floor and the check your staff will write. There are no guidelines. There is only the hand that struck and the hand that paid.
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed. But what you have planted in the Department of Justice is not a mustard seed. You have poured a bile that will rot the barrel. You have made the house of law a place where the victimizer files for reimbursement for the violence he committed.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” Matthew 23:23
The officer is still in pain. The rioter is still at home. You are still in Washington. The ledger is open. The hand that struck is reaching for the check. On the day it clears, look at the signature. It is yours.