Donald Trump supporters clash with police and security forces in the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
Two police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, sued the Trump administration Wednesday to block the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion fund to pay people said to be victims of judicial weaponization, saying the fund would aid and encourage the pro-Trump rioters who attacked that Capitol that day and still harbor desire to harm the officers.
Retired U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges said in a complaint
“In the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century, President Donald J. Trump has created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name,” the first paragraph of the complaint reads.
The complaint lists Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as defendants.
The Justice Department, which Blanche has led since last month, announced the creation of the fund on Monday in conjunction with Trump dropping a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.
Claims by victims of ‘weaponization’
The fund would use money from a pool designated for settling legal claims against the federal government to compensate people who were “victims of lawfare and weaponization,” Blanche said in a press release.
Trump has long complained that the Biden administration targeted him, his allies and supporters for prosecutions that were not supported by facts on the ground. That claim was part of his rationale for pardoning people convicted of crimes on Jan. 6.
The press release explicitly says there is no partisan test to benefit from the fund, but the structure gives Trump and Blanche, who was Trump’s criminal defense attorney before joining the government, near total control.
Payments from the fund would be decided by a five-member panel, which the attorney general would appoint. Only one appointment would require “consultation” with Congress and the president would be able to fire any member. The fund would dissolve in December 2028, the month before Trump’s term ends.
Dunn and Hodges said in Wednesday’s challenge that Trump’s IRS lawsuit was frivolous from the start because the president was suing a government agency that he controlled. The suit also came after the statute of limitations expired, they said.
The settlement “is a corrupt sham,” they said.
Jan. 6 injuries
Dunn and Hodges both deployed to the Capitol during the 2021 attack. The lawsuit describes the danger they faced and injuries they incurred. Hodges said a rioter tried to gouge out his eyes and that he thought he would die while crushed between metal doors.
Investigations of the attack showed that it was a “planned insurrection” by paramilitary groups like the Proud Boys, the suit says.
Many of the people Trump pardoned for crimes connected to the attack, including former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for sedition, have expressed a desire to exact revenge, according to the suit.
On Jan. 6 of this year, Tarrio said on the podcast of right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that after his pardon, he was “searching for … retribution, retaliation.”
Fund called ‘stupid on stilts’
The fund is illegal, Dunn and Hodges’ lawsuit says. No law authorized its creation, and the appropriation creating the judgment fund that is used to pay out other settlements does not apply when no settlement has been reached, they said.
Members of Congress, including Republicans, have major reservations about the fund.
Blanche pitched a group of Senate Republicans during a two-hour meeting Thursday, but didn’t appear to change many minds.
Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said the meeting was a “spirited discussion.”
Shortly after the meeting, the chamber’s GOP leaders told members they would not vote this month on a $72 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement and security upgrades to Trump’s proposed White House ballroom. Senators sought to insert guardrails on the DOJ fund into the bill.
In a Wednesday interview with Spectrum News, retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the fund “stupid on stilts.”
“It will invariably put us in a position where your taxpayers dollars and my taxpayer dollars could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer, admitted their guilt, got convicted, got pardoned, and now we are going to pay them for that,” he said. “That’s absurd.”
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, has also voiced her objection. Blanche testified at a Senate Appropriations hearing Tuesday, when Collins questioned him about the fund. She later said his answers did not win her support.
“After my exchange with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, I do not support the creation of the proposed Anti-Weaponization Fund,” she said in a written statement that also noted no court had approved it.
Dunn also a candidate
A White House spokesperson deferred a message seeking comment Thursday to the Justice Department. Spokespeople for the department did not return messages.
Dunn, who is running as a Democrat for a Maryland U.S. House seat, told Maryland Matters the fund did not come as a surprise.
“This was a promise to his supporters,” Dunn said. “When it was finally announced, there was no doubt in our minds to stop this.”
Ashley Murray and Will Ford contributed to this report.
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