President Donald Trump on Friday said he had allowed the Justice Department's new $1.7 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund to go forward, casting the move as a way to compensate people he says were unfairly targeted. In a Truth Social post, Trump said, “I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced Anti-Weaponization Fund to go forward.”
The claim marked a sharp turn from his own comments earlier in the week. On Monday, Trump said he knew very little about the fund and was not involved in its creation or negotiation. On Wednesday, he told reporters he was “wasn't involved in the settlement.”
Trump said he could have received a significant amount of money in a settlement of his civil lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over a leak of his tax returns, but instead said he chose to help others he claimed were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration. “It’s been very well received, I have to tell you. I know very little about it. I wasn’t involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation,” Trump said Friday. “But this is reimbursing people who were horribly treated.”
The Justice Department says the Anti-Weaponization Fund is intended to provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of people who suffered weaponization and lawfare. A board appointed by the attorney general would determine payments from the fund. The department announced the $1.7 billion program on Monday, tying it to Trump’s IRS lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns.
The details have already set off alarms on Capitol Hill. Senate Republicans pressed Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for more information during a closed-door meeting on Thursday, and some GOP senators raised concerns that people convicted of assaulting law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and later pardoned by Trump could receive money from the fund.
That concern is not hypothetical. Michael Cohen said he intended to apply for a payout from the fund, and Michael Caputo said he intended to do the same. Enrique Tarrio suggested he may seek compensation as well. Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 assault. He was among more than 1,500 defendants convicted of crimes stemming from the attack who received clemency from Trump on the first day of his second term.
The White House, according to a separate report, said there was no discrepancy between Trump’s earlier comments and his Friday statement. But the mixed signals still leave the fund in a politically charged place: promoted by the president as restitution, questioned by Republicans as a possible payout channel, and built around a process that a Justice Department board will control. The next test is whether Blanche and the department can explain exactly who qualifies before the first claims turn the fund into something far broader than Trump described.
