A federal judge barred the government on Friday from taking steps to launch President Trump’s $1.8 billion fund, for now prohibiting the Trump administration from setting up the fund that is intended to pay people the administration finds were harmed by the federal government.
The brief order by Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia prohibits the government from establishing the fund or processing disbursements at least until a hearing is held in June in a pending lawsuit challenging its legality.
The order came in a case brought by a group of individuals and entities who say they have faced partisan attacks by the Trump administration but who say they expect to be excluded from accessing the fund.
The halt provided the first meaningful, if potentially temporary, roadblock to efforts to compensate the president’s political allies since plans for the fund were formalized this month. At least two other lawsuits challenging the fund have also been filed in the District of Columbia and in California, and a number of lawmakers, including prominent Republicans, have publicly objected to its aims.
Mr. Trump has celebrated the fund as a source of relief for victims of “weaponization and lawfare” under Democratic administrations, and a number of Mr. Trump’s allies, including rioters convicted of crimes during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, have announced plans to apply.
The group that brought the lawsuit includes a former federal prosecutor who said he was fired for his work on the Jan. 6 investigation, and a professor in California who was arrested while protesting an immigration raid. In court filings, they contend that they have been the victims of genuine partisan persecution, but under Mr. Trump.
Judge Brinkema, a Clinton appointee, described the order as necessary to preserve the status quo and to “ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed” until she holds an initial hearing in the case on June 12.
Until then, her order prohibited “the transferring of money to the fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the fund.”
Skye Perryman, the president of Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit representing the assorted plaintiffs, described the order as “a victory for transparency, the rule of law, and the American people.”
“No administration has the authority to spend public money through a political rewards program that Congress never authorized,” she said in a statement.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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