Former prosecutors who built criminal cases against the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters are sounding the alarm over a Trump administration fund that would compensate people convicted in the attack — including those found guilty of assaulting police officers.
The administration has set aside $1.776 billion in taxpayer money for what it calls victims of government “weaponization,” and former prosecutors and domestic extremism researchers say the dollar figure sends a dangerous signal to insurrectionists who rallied around the revolutionary year of 1776 as they worked to overturn the 2020 election, reported MS NOW.
“People were sending text messages about George Washington crossing the Delaware as they took a rebar from the inaugural stage and bashed police officers on the head,” said a former Jan. 6 prosecutor who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The prospect of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys members receiving substantial payouts from the fund drew a stark warning from the former prosecutor.
Think how much weaponry they could purchase with that,” he said. “Think how much money they could use to recruit other people with the message: ‘If you commit crimes in the name of Trump, you’re going to be pardoned and enriched.’”
Tim Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney who served as chief investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 committee, called the fund’s premise staggering. “It’s an alternate universe that there would be any credible claim that they are entitled to damages,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance declined to rule out payments to rioters convicted of assaulting police officers, telling reporters the administration would examine “everything case by case,” and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated that a “Truth and Justice Commission” — composed entirely of administration appointees with Blanche holding removal authority — will determine fund eligibility.
Jacob Ware, a terrorism researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations, characterized the fund as signaling that “criminal behavior, criminal actions against our election system such as occurred on Jan. 6, will be compensated if done on behalf of the president,” describing it as “antithetical to democracy.”
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