The $1.8 billion fund created by the Trump administration this week to pay people who claim mistreatment by the federal government appears to violate longstanding Justice Department standards and practices, as well as a policy directive issued by the administration last year, legal experts said on Wednesday.
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, defended the fund at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, calling it “unusual” but insisting it was appropriate and reflective of past settlements.
Justice Department veterans have been deeply skeptical of those claims, particularly when it comes to a provision in the deal that offers President Trump, his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization immunity from tax penalties. They have also been critical of the decision to resolve a lawsuit filed by one group of people in a way that gives more than a billion dollars to an entirely different category of people.
“I have never heard of the department ever being willing to grant blanket immunity,” said Jennifer Ricketts, a former branch director in the department’s civil division. “That seems blatantly corrupt. It’s a shocking gift to the president.”
Justice Department veterans also said the new fund appeared to contradict a specific policy instituted by the Trump administration last year under former Attorney General Pam Bondi that largely prohibited payments to groups not involved in an underlying lawsuit. Some Republican lawmakers, such as Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and David Schweikert of Arizona, have expressed doubt over the fund, and Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, introduced a bill to stop it.
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.
The deal struck between the president’s lawyers and his own administration, without oversight of a judge, could involve major payouts to people who had not sued the government, as well.
“I’ve just never seen litigation risk outside the four corners of the complaint being used as justification for something in a totally unrelated lawsuit,” Ms. Ricketts added.
Here is more about how the fund could work.
Who would qualify?
Mr. Blanche has not placed limits on who can apply for money from the fund. He has suggested that even President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son Hunter, who was prosecuted and convicted by the Biden administration, could apply. At the same time, officials have not explained who is likely to receive money, beyond general statements that the fund is for people victimized by past administrations. Factors that will be considered include legal fees or time in prison.
The president’s words suggest that Eric Adams, the former New York City mayor whose indictment was dropped by the Trump administration last year, would be eligible.
“We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you,” Mr. Trump told the mayor at a 2024 charity event.
Another possible recipient is Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, who has long claimed to be a victim of weaponization. At a congressional hearing last year, Mr. Patel said: “You want to know who was targeted by a weaponized F.B.I.? Me.”
The president and his supporters have used the term “weaponization” to broadly define perceived government mistreatment of and misconduct toward them. If the fund’s five commissioners, who will be appointed by Mr. Blanche, adopt that same expansive definition, those eligible for payments could include people such as Jim Hoft, the owner of the right wing site The Gateway Pundit, who sued the government over what he claimed was censorship as a result of federal agencies pressuring social media companies on topics like the 2020 election and the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Blanche has said it will take time to appoint commissioners who will craft rules for payouts from the fund, which involves taxpayer money in a Treasury Department account known as the Judgment Fund.
How will the public know who gets the money?
At a congressional hearing this week, Mr. Blanche said quarterly reports about the fund expenditures would be made public in order to provide “full transparency.” He added an important caveat — that the department would still have to follow federal privacy laws when releasing the reports.
That means there may not be a public list of people who received specific amounts from the fund, because the Privacy Act of 1974 generally prohibits an agency from disclosing a government record unless the person in question gives written consent before the disclosure. The rule, however, has about a dozen exceptions to it, and it is not clear if administration officials believe one or more of those exceptions apply to recipients of money from the fund.
How payouts have worked in the past
Treasury Department officials normally authorize payouts from the Judgment Fund when a court ruling is entered against the federal government, or when Justice Department lawyers provide an assessment of the litigation risk posed by a lawsuit or claim. In essence, Justice Department lawyers must explain their rationale to the Treasury Department for why settling a case for a certain amount is in the government’s interest.
The early version of the Judgment Fund was created in 1956 to authorize payments of court judgments below a certain limit without requiring congressional action. The scope of the fund expanded in 1961 to include settlements reached before a court judgment.
In justifying the new fund for what the administration claims are victims of weaponized government, Mr. Blanche cited the Obama-era resolution of a case called Keepseagle, a class-action lawsuit over discrimination against Native American farmers.
Josh Gardner, a former Justice Department lawyer who worked on the Keepseagle case, said there were stark differences between that arrangement and the new fund.
“When you’re going to tap the judgment fund, you need to justify why taxpayer dollars are being expended, and you have to justify that by explaining why there is litigation risk,” Mr. Gardner said. “How can you do that when you don’t even know who is a potential member of this claims process?”
The Keepseagle discrimination settlement was overseen by a federal judge after years of litigation and analysis of the claims and evidence. After the members of the class-action suit were given payments, the remaining money was given to organizations concerned with Native American farming and ranching.
By contrast, Mr. Gardner said, the new initiative “is decidedly not a fund for the plaintiffs.”
The fund seems to contradict a Trump administration policy
On Pam Bondi’s first day as attorney general in February 2025, she signed a directive that appeared to prohibit an arrangement like the $1.8 billion fund. The memo, titled “Reinstating the Prohibitions on Improper Third Party Settlements,” revived a Justice Department policy that the Trump administration adopted in 2017 and the Biden administration subsequently canceled.
The memo said that except in “limited circumstances,” the department should not use settlements “to require payments to nongovernmental, third-party organizations that were neither victims nor parties to the lawsuits.”
The new fund, however, appears to be structured to steer a large pot of money to third-party claimants, most of whom have not filed suits and may never file suits now that there is a fund.
The purpose of the Bondi memo was to bar the kinds of arrangements sometimes made during the Obama administration, particularly with large financial institutions, that directed money to nongovernmental organizations. To conservatives, the Obama administration too often used the money to advance ideological goals, and the Bondi memo was designed to prevent that.
A year after issuing that memo, the Trump administration plans to give out money to an unspecified number of people for the general purpose of paying “victims” of purported governmental weaponization. The exact size of the fund — $1.776 billion — is intended to convey patriotic symbolism, a highly unusual choice for such a program.
Normally, proposed figures are calculated based on the legal claims lodged against the government, and a risk calculation by Justice Department lawyers about how much juries may ultimately award in the cases. For Mr. Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund,” it is unclear what set of cases or claims formed the basis of a calculation that landed on the $1.776 billion figure.
The paperwork establishing the fund says it can be used to pay “entities,” which seems to trample on the purpose of the Bondi memo.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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