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- A federal judge has extended her order blocking President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund indefinitely.
- Judge Leonie Brinkema said she doesn’t believe the fund is fully dead because Trump and officials continue expressing interest.
- The Justice Department has one week to submit a sworn statement that the fund is permanently terminated.
A federal judge on Friday said she doesn’t believe President Donald Trump’s plan for a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” is fully dead, and issued an order indefinitely blocking the proposal.
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Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia said she has decided to block the fund under a court order because acting Attorney General Todd Blanche or others haven’t said under oath the proposed fund was dead, that they haven’t rescinded the so-called settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS establishing the fund, and that Trump himself has suggested he still wants the fund to exist.
“When the President of the United States says” he wants something to happen, Brinkema said in court Friday morning, “that’s a pretty good indicator there will be an incentive and motive to make it happen.”
The fund could “rear its head” again in the future, the judge added, describing the prospect of US Capitol rioters getting payments as “problematic.”
Brinkema, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, is giving the Justice Department a week to decide whether it wants to submit a sworn statement from a top official stating that the fund is dead for good. If she receives such a promise, she said, she may decide that the case is moot.
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“I do not have in this record the type of uncontestable evidence that this could not be repeated,” she told Justice Department attorney Andrew Block.
Brinkema originally blocked the fund late last month on a short-term and temporary basis as lawmakers from both parties rebelled against the proposal, eventually leading to Blanche telling a congressional committee it would not move forward.
But Trump and Blanche continue to express interest in creating some kind of mechanism to pay those they believe have been victimized by prior administrations and DOJ has not issued anything in writing reversing its earlier orders.
The Justice Department has argued the fund was dead, and any court order wasn’t needed.
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