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A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, created as part of an unprecedented settlement involving President Donald Trump, his family and the Trump Organization.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia issued the order Friday after a former Jan. 6 prosecutor and others sued last week to stop the fund from moving forward.
The fund is being administered through the Justice Department, which did not immediately comment on the ruling.
The program has drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, with opponents describing it as a massive “slush fund” for Trump allies. Legal experts have also raised concerns about the lack of public oversight surrounding how the money would be distributed.
Senate Republican leaders last week delayed a vote on a GOP package to fund ICE and Border Patrol operations in part because of concerns surrounding the fund.
Under Brinkema’s order, the Trump administration cannot take further action on the program while legal motions remain pending. That includes transferring money into the fund, reviewing claims submitted to it or distributing any payments.
The judge said the temporary order was necessary “to ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed from the Anti-Weaponization Fund” while the court considers requests to block the program. A hearing was scheduled for June 12.
Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman, whose organization filed the lawsuit, said the ruling acknowledged the need to stop what she called a “secretive and unprecedented political compensation scheme.”
“This is a victory for transparency, the rule of law, and the American people,” Perryman said in a statement. “No administration has the authority to spend public money through a political rewards program that Congress never authorized.”
The application process for the fund cannot formally begin until five commissioners are selected to oversee it, though some individuals claiming they were targeted by the government have already requested compensation. The White House referred questions to the Justice Department.
It also remains unclear how applicants would officially apply for payments. According to the DOJ, the pool of potential applicants could be extensive.
Andrew Floyd, who previously led a task force in the now-disbanded Capitol Siege Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia before he was fired in July, submitted a declaration supporting the lawsuit Thursday. Floyd helped prosecute cases tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
In the filing, Floyd argued the Trump administration was giving Jan. 6 defendants access to what he described as an illegally created system designed to “rush money out the door to perceived political allies” while treating former prosecutors and investigators as political enemies.
He described the firing of dozens of law enforcement officials as “appalling” and warned that no president should be able to use government authority to punish officials for doing their jobs.
“The president’s targeting of me and others involved in January 6 prosecutions leaves our country in a very dark place, sending a message that insurrection and sedition will be protected (and even encouraged) as long as it is on behalf of this administration,” Floyd wrote.
The Trump administration moved to establish the fund shortly before court deadlines in a separate $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against the executive branch over the leak of his IRS records years earlier.
A federal judge in Florida had questioned whether the court could properly hear that case given Trump’s control over the Justice Department attorneys representing the government. Trump’s private legal team later dropped the lawsuit and announced a settlement tied to other claims against the government on the same day the fund was unveiled.
The fund also faces additional lawsuits in Washington.
Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants on his first day back in office last year. Last week, the administration also began removing Justice Department news releases related to Jan. 6 prosecutions from the DOJ website, describing them as “partisan propaganda.”
“We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes,” a Justice Department social media account said in a statement.
