Two Federal Judges Move to Freeze and Review Trump’s $1.8 Billion Fund

Two federal judges in different states acted Friday against the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, an early legal setback for a program that has divided lawmakers on Capitol Hill, NPR reported Saturday.

In Virginia, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, a Clinton appointee, ordered Trump officials to stop setting up the pool of money “to ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed,” according to NPR, and set a June 12 hearing on whether to extend her order. The order came in a lawsuit brought by Andrew Floyd, a former Justice Department lawyer, and other plaintiffs, who argue that Congress never approved the nearly $2 billion and that the fund “rewards and incentivizes unlawful behavior,” NPR reported.

In Florida, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond to a motion from 35 former federal judges, appointed by presidents of both parties. They argue that Trump filed his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service as a private plaintiff while, as president, he also leads the executive branch that oversees the IRS, so he is in effect on both sides of the case. The former judges call the suit “a fraud on the court” and ask her to reopen it. Williams had dismissed the case after the settlement, but NPR said she wrote that the court is “empowered to investigate serious misconduct.”

The fund grew out of Trump’s lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns. Instead of going to trial, administration lawyers and the president’s personal legal team settled by agreeing to create a taxpayer-supported pool of money, NPR said. Trump officials have described it as a way to compensate people the president says were unjustly targeted by the government, including Trump allies and Jan. 6 rioters, NPR said. Critics describe it as a slush fund for Trump supporters who say they were victims of political persecution, NPR reported.

The Justice Department has defended the effort. “We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes,” department officials said on social media, according to NPR. The administration’s argument is that the government wrongly targeted Trump and his supporters and owes them redress.

Legal specialists have questioned the design. Adam Zimmerman, a University of Southern California law professor, told NPR that earlier mass compensation funds, such as those tied to the Holocaust or the BP oil spill, resolved sprawling class-action lawsuits involving identifiable injuries to discrete groups of people. This fund, he said, “doesn’t address real legal injuries” and “offers money to an indeterminate group of people, who never threatened or commenced any kind of legal action.”

Legal experts have also voiced alarm at the fund’s lack of oversight and at its having no connection to the claims Trump made in his suit against the IRS, NPR reported. The judges’ orders do not decide whether the fund is lawful. Brinkema’s June 12 hearing, and Williams’s decision on whether to reopen the IRS case, are the next tests.