Judge Leonie Brinkema Extends Block on Trump’s $1.8 Billion Anti-Weaponization Fund

A federal judge in Alexandria, Va. extended an order indefinitely blocking the Trump administration’s creation and operation of a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” with U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruling it will remain blocked until further notice.

“Judge issues injunction blocking administration's 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' The judge was concerned that officials have not disavowed the fund in writing”

ABC News

Brinkema said the “mootness argument” did not resolve the dispute, and she gave the parties a week to negotiate an agreement for Trump administration officials, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, to submit a sworn declaration that the administration won’t revive the fund.

ABC News

The fund was created as part of a settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, and the Justice Department said it was scrapping the plan after bipartisan backlash.

In a separate case in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Judge Richard Leon rejected a government watchdog’s request for a temporary block, accepting Blanche’s representation that the fund is now moot.

The plaintiffs challenging the fund include a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest, along with Common Cause, the city of New Haven, Connecticut, and the National Abortion Federation.

Brinkema’s skepticism centered on whether officials had disavowed the fund in writing, as the court extended the block because it did not trust the administration’s word that it would not attempt to enact it.

In court, Brinkema warned that “When the President of the United States says” he wants something, it is “a pretty good indicator there will be an incentive and motive to make it happen,” and she tied that concern to Trump’s continued public support for the fund.

CNBC

The dispute also turned on whether the Justice Department had formally rescinded the May 18 order establishing the fund, with Brinkema pressing U.S. Department of Justice attorney Andrew Block about why Blanche hadn’t rescinded it.

Brinkema’s order barred officials “from taking any action to create or operate” the fund and from proceeding with the concept “in any manner, or under any name,” according to UPI’s account of her ruling.

CNN reported Brinkema said she doesn’t believe the plan is fully dead, adding that she decided to block it because acting Attorney General Todd Blanche or others haven’t said under oath the proposed fund was dead and Trump himself has suggested he still wants it to exist.

The legal fight is framed around whether taxpayer money can be diverted into what plaintiffs and critics describe as a “slush fund” to compensate people they say were targeted by a weaponized government.

“A federal judge on Friday said she doesn’t believe President Donald Trump’s plan for a $1”

CNN

The fund is tied to Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, and the Justice Department announced the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund as part of that settlement.

In a brief read aloud in court, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., wrote that “The Anti-Weaponization Fund presents an immediate and dire threat to our constitutional order and the authority of Congress,” and they said it was designed to compensate the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman said the court recognized “the serious legal concerns raised by the Trump-Vance administration’s attempt to create a secretive, taxpayer-funded compensation program operating outside the constitutional safeguards that govern public spending.”

The next step hinges on whether Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent submit a sworn declaration under penalty of perjury that the fund will not go forward, because Brinkema said she would likely dismiss the case as moot if the administration submits the rescission in writing.