The Trump administration has announced the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate MAGA supporters who believe they were mistreated by Joe Biden’s Justice Department.
The ‘anti-weaponisation fund’ was announced by the US Justice Department as part of a deal to resolve Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leak of his tax returns.
Acting attorney general Todd Blanche said it was ‘a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponisation to be heard and seek redress’.
Democrats and government watchdogs immediately pledged to fight what they called a “corrupt’ and unprecedented resolution, which will be funded through taxpayer dollars.
They’ve argued that the fund would unjustly enrich people close to the president with taxpayer dollars and open the door to meritless claims of political persecution.
The fund was announced after Trump’s lawyers disclosed the dismissal of the case in a filing on Monday in federal court in Florida, where the president sued earlier this year.
The case was about to be thrown out before Trump’s lawyers withdrew it, having reached a settlement with the DOJ – which he controls – and now, they’re using taxpayer money to reimburse MAGA supporters who say they’ve been ‘targeted’ by Biden’s DOJ.
On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of supporters who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Since then, his Justice Department has approved payouts to supporters entangled in the Trump-Russia investigation and investigated and prosecuted some of his perceived adversaries.
Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, slammed the fund as ‘slush’.
‘This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at the DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election-stealing schemes.’
Trump’s lawyers suggested in their court filing seeking to dismiss the case that the resolution would not be reviewable by a judge. But a group of 93 members of Congress filed a brief, teeing up a challenge.
It was not immediately clear who precisely would stand to benefit from the fund, but its creation reflects Trump’s long-running claims that the Justice Department during the Biden administration was weaponised against him.
He has cited as proof the since-dismissed criminal charges he faced between his first and second terms of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election he lost and of retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Several aides of his were also prosecuted, as were hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol in an effort to halt the certification of election results in 2021.
Merrick Garland, who served as attorney general during the Biden administration, has repeatedly denied allegations of politicisation and has said his decisions followed facts, the evidence and the law.
His Justice Department also investigated former President Biden for his handling of classified information and brought separate tax and gun prosecutions against Biden’s son, Hunter.
Nonetheless, Trump’s Justice Department has actively pursued the president’s retribution campaign and grievances.
It’s brought criminal charges against some of his political opponents and initiated a wide-ranging investigation that aims to establish a years-long conspiracy between law enforcement and intelligence officials to destroy Trump’s political prospects.
No charges have been brought in that investigation, and it is not clear that any ever will be.
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