ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge agreed on Friday to extend a court-ordered block on the Trump administration’s creation and operation of a $1.8-billion settlement fund for compensating people who claim to be victims of a weaponized government.
Earlier this month, acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche told Congress that the government is scrapping its plans for the fund in the face of a fierce bipartisan backlash. Government attorneys have argued that lawsuits challenging the fund are now moot, but plaintiffs’ attorneys aren’t satisfied by Blanche’s assurances that the fund won’t move forward.
Neither was U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who ruled that the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” will remain blocked until further notice from the court.
“The [government’s] mootness argument, in my view, doesn’t go anywhere,” the judge said.
President Trump, meanwhile, has not publicly and unequivocally endorsed its cancellation. He has continued to express support for the fund in remarks to reporters.
Brinkema gave the parties a week to negotiate an agreement for Blanche to submit a sworn declaration that the administration won’t revive the fund.
Brinkema previously agreed to temporarily block the administration from proceeding with the fund for at least two weeks. Her May 29 order was due to expire on Friday.
Trump’s Republican administration created the fund to resolve his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
Plaintiffs who sued to block fund payouts argue that the government can’t legally divert taxpayer money into what they argue is a slush fund for compensating Trump’s allies.
In a separate case on Wednesday, a different judge in Washington, D.C., rejected a government watchdog’s parallel request for a court order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from forging ahead with the fund. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said he accepts Blanche’s representation that the fund is now moot.
Leon had asked Justice Department attorney Andrew Block why Blanche doesn’t formally rescind his May 18 order establishing the fund. Block said he didn’t know. He still didn’t have an answer to that question when Brinkema posed it two days later.
“It’s a huge gap in the record that we don’t have an answer to that question,” the judge said.
In the Virginia case, attorneys from the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward asked for an order to temporarily suspend the fund’s implementation and stop the Trump administration from disbursing any payouts from it.
The plaintiffs include a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest.
Even before the administration said it was dropping the fund, the Justice Department did not form the five-member commission that would decide on payout criteria, so no money was paid out nor claims accepted.
Many of the Republican president’s allies are opposed to compensating rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In May, however, Blanche wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Capitol rioters who engaged could be eligible to apply for payments from the fund.
Trump issued mass pardons to Capitol rioters on his first day back in the White House last year. More than 1,500 people were charged in the Jan. 6 attack before Trump erased every case with his sweeping act of clemency.
Brinkema was nominated to the bench by President Clinton, a Democrat.
Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.
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