The Justice Department is refusing to formally swear that President Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund is dead, and one legal analyst said Monday that refusal may have been a telling reveal.
Writing for MS NOW, legal analyst Lisa Rubin examined the DOJ’s response to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who gave the administration a choice: file sworn declarations from the officials who created the fund stating it would never exist, or the case would proceed.
The fund was created last month as part of the DOJ’s settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS and was quickly condemned as a “slush fund” for the president’s allies before the administration backed off amid bipartisan outcry.
But the officials who signed it — acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward — declined to swear it was finished. In a Friday filing, the DOJ argued declarations were unnecessary because it had repeatedly said it would not move forward with the fund. It also argued that the judge overstepped, claiming separation-of-powers principles bar a judge from compelling testimony from executive officials.
That argument, Rubin said, clashes with the DOJ’s own recent conduct.
Since Trump returned to office, the department has submitted sworn declarations from senior officials in several cases, including the fight over Alien Enemies Act deportations, the Epstein Files Transparency Act and the bitter fight over Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center.
The contradiction, Rubin wrote, raises a question.
“… Is that argument concealing the administration’s hope — or even intent — to keep the door open on the fund?” she pondered.
Blanche has insisted the fund is finished, and on Monday, the DOJ confirmed no money has moved in or out of it. Rubin said that underscored what the officials won’t say: “the fund has no future.”
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