WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump 's allies who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Biden administration could soon have access to a $1.7 billion dollar compensation fund, the Justice Department announced Monday, in a move slammed by Democrats as unconstitutional and corrupt.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that the fund — dubbed the “Anti-Weaponization Fund" — will represent “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.” Blanche's statement made no mention of how investigations and prosecutions of Trump’s political opponents under his watch have exposed the Justice Department to the same claims of politicized law enforcement that he said he opposed.
The fund was announced as part of a deal to resolve Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
The fund is in keeping with Trump's long-running claims that the Justice Department during the Biden administration was weaponized against him, even though then-President Joe Biden himself was scrutinized during that time. The fund would represent not only a highly unorthodox resolution but also a further demonstration of the Trump administration’s eagerness to reward allies who were investigated and in some cases charged and convicted before Trump came to power.
Monday afternoon at the White House, Trump told reporters the fund is dedicated to “reimbursing people who were horribly treated.”
Democratic lawmakers, who are teeing up a legal challenge to the move, argue that it will become a taxpayer-funded “slush fund” for Trump allies and supporters who claim political persecution. They also question whether the president should be able to direct money for the fund without explicit congressional approval.
Here's what to know about the fund:
The fund was announced after Trump and his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization agreed to drop their lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department. The lawsuit alleged that a leak of confidential tax records caused them reputational and financial harm and negatively affected their public standing, among other allegations.
According to the Justice Department announcement, the fund is meant to provide a formal process for people or entities who say they were unfairly targeted by the government for political, ideological or personal reasons.
“The use of government power to target individuals or entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, or ideological reasons should not be tolerated by any administration,” Justice Department official Trent McCotter said in the statement announcing the fund.
The money itself would come from the federal judgment fund, which pays out court judgments and compromise settlements of lawsuits against the government.
The fund will be able to review claims of alleged government political targeting, will issue formal apologies and award monetary compensation to approved claimants, according to the Justice Department.
The claims of a weaponized Justice Department during the Biden administration overlook the fact that President Joe Biden himself was investigated for the potential mishandling of classified information, and his son Hunter was charged with gun and tax crimes.
The Justice Department did not identify anyone by name who could theoretically benefit from the fund, but there were multiple investigations of Trump allies during the Biden administration where targets could look to obtain payouts.
Prosecutors, for instance, charged about 1,500 people in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump on his first day in office of his second term either pardoned them, commuted their prison sentences or dismissed the cases.
It’s unclear whether those entitled to compensation would include Jan. 6 defendants who were convicted of attacking officers with makeshift weapons such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and crutch. More than 250 people were convicted of assault charges, with the attacks in many cases captured on surveillance or body camera footage.
Other prominent Trump supporters who were investigated and charged include Steve Bannon, who served a prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena, and Peter Navarro, who was similarly convicted of contempt and later pardoned.
The Justice Department says the fund will receive $1.776 billion from the federal judgment fund, to operate through Dec. 15, 2028, and will be overseen by a five-member commission appointed by Blanche, with one member chosen in consultation with congressional leadership. According to the Justice Department, the president can remove any member.
It was unclear how the commission would determine who should be awarded compensation.
The Justice Department cites previous cases that led to settlements as the authority for this fund — including litigation related to Keepseagle v. Vilsack — a landmark 1999 class-action lawsuit filed against the USDA by Native American farmers who alleged that the USDA discriminated against Native American farmworkers by denying them farm loans while approving similar loans for white applicants.
“The Obama Administration settled the case by establishing an administrative claims process funded by $680,000,000 paid from the judgment fund, which was deposited into a bank account to fund the claims received," states the Justice Department.
Democratic lawmakers and ethics watchdogs slammed the creation of the fund — saying it was corrupt, untransparent and had the potential to become a “slush fund” for the president and his allies.
A group of nearly 100 members of Congress filed a brief teeing up a legal challenge to the case.
“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called the fund "corruption on steroids.”
Last month, she and a group of other Democratic lawmakers introduced the Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act, which would ban the sitting president and vice president from collecting settlement payments from the U.S., among other things.
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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.
