A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, freezing any movement of money while a lawsuit over the program moves ahead. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia said the order was needed to ensure no money is irreversibly paid out while motions to stop the fund are pending.
The ruling immediately stops the administration from transferring money into the fund, reviewing claims or disbursing any payments from it. That matters because people who say they were targeted by the government have already sought money, even though the application process cannot officially begin until five commissioners are chosen to decide how awards would be handled.
The fund was created as part of an unprecedented settlement involving the president, his family and the Trump Org., and it is being operated out of the Justice Department. The lawsuit was filed last week by a Jan. 6 prosecutor and others, setting up a clash over a program critics have described as a slush fund for Trump’s allies while the Justice Department said it would do everything in its power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes.
Andrew Floyd added his own objection in a declaration filed Thursday. Floyd, who headed a task force in the now-closed Capitol Siege Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia before he was dismissed in July, said the fund was “gifting the people I helped investigate and prosecute after January 6” and accused the administration of rushing money out the door to perceived political allies while treating him and others like disfavored enemies.
He called that prospect “appalling” and said the president’s targeting of him and others involved in Jan. 6 prosecutions leaves the country in “a very dark place,” sending a message that insurrection and sedition will be protected, and even encouraged, if they are carried out on behalf of the administration. The White House referred questions to the Justice Department, while the administration has also moved last week to erase press releases about Jan. 6 prosecutions from the department’s website, calling them partisan propaganda.
For now, Brinkema’s order means the fund cannot function in practice until the case advances and the five commissioners are named. The administration may want the money flowing, but the judge’s ruling has put every step on hold, from transfers to claims review to disbursements, and left the fight over who the fund is really for to the next round of court filings.
