A coalition of individuals and groups says it was targeted by an overzealous Justice Department under President Trump in a lawsuit filed on Friday, challenging the $1.8 billion fund the president said would be created for victims of a “weaponized” federal government.
The lawsuit presented a novel approach to challenging the fund, which legal experts have warned could be hard to fight in court because of the difficulty of pointing to an individual or group directly harmed by the fund. It followed an earlier lawsuit brought this week by two law enforcement officers who were present during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and said they faced violence, only to see rioters now poised to receive payouts.
The Trump administration has left little doubt that the fund is designed to steer money toward many of Mr. Trump’s supporters, including those convicted of breaking the law on the president’s behalf. The lawsuit filed Friday claims that explicit partisan favoritism, alone, could make the fund illegal.
“By its own terms, the anti-weaponization fund is available only to claimants who assert that they were targeted by ‘Democrat’ administrations, even though the current administration has weaponized the awesome power of the federal government against its perceived political opponents like no other administration before it,” the lawsuit said. “Neither the First Amendment nor the equal protection guarantee of our Constitution countenance such blatant partiality.”
The plaintiffs joining together in the case include a diverse mix of people and groups who the lawsuit said were targeted by the Trump administration or would be negatively affected by the fund.
They included Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor who has said he was fired for his work on the Jan. 6 investigation, as well as Jonathan Caravello, a professor in California who was arrested while protesting an immigration raid, charged with felony assault of a federal officer and later acquitted by a jury.
The City of New Haven joined the case based on the Trump administration’s reaction to its “sanctuary city” policies, which the lawsuit said caused the government to pull federal funding from the city last year. The lawsuit also said that the creation of the fund could invite individuals previously prosecuted for attacking abortion clinics to apply, threatening the work of the National Abortion Federation, which is also a plaintiff.
The lawsuit argues that while most of the plaintiffs had faced targeted attacks after being deemed “ideological or political opponents” under the Trump administration, none would be able to apply for compensation because the fund is aimed at helping those who claim they were targeted by the Biden Justice Department and Democrats. The suit asked a federal judge in Virginia to order the fund to be stopped.
“The unlawfulness that has imbued the anti-weaponization fund from its inception requires that it be wholly dismantled,” the complaint said.
The case relies on a different legal argument than the one brought by the law enforcement officers earlier this week. Yet both include claims that the fund, if used to pay out people convicted of violent crimes, would encourage future political violence.
Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks government spending, also joined the lawsuit, raising concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the fund. The legal group Democracy Forward is representing all involved.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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