Federal Judge Blocks Fund Trump Built to Pay His Allies
A federal judge in Virginia has frozen the regime’s $1.776 billion payout fund before a cent could move. The order from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema bars any action to create or operate the fund: no transferring money into it, no considering claims, no disbursing a dollar. A hearing is set for June 12 on whether the freeze becomes lasting.
The fund came as a result of Trump suing his own government. He filed a $10 billion suit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, then his own Justice Department settled it by establishing a fund to compensate so-called victims of “lawfare.”
The money comes from the Judgment Fund, a Treasury account meant to pay legitimate legal claims against the government, not claims the president manufactures against himself.
The plaintiffs who won today’s freeze, a coalition of people the regime targeted, argue the fund could funnel money to participants in the January 6 attack, in violation of the 14th Amendment’s bar on federal funds spent in aid of insurrection. A separate brief notes the more than 1,500 people charged over the Capitol attack could qualify as “victims of weaponization.”
Several January 6 rioters had already positioned themselves for a payout before the fund existed. Andrew Paul Johnson, now serving life for molesting two children, told one victim he was being "awarded" $10 million in restitution for January 6 defendants and would leave part of it to the child in his will, court records show, a bid to buy the child's silence.
For now, there is no payout for Trump’s allies, nor the January 6 rioters who had been waiting for one, we will see in June if that ruling will stand.