Judge keeps block on $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund

Alexandria, Virginia — A federal judge on Friday extended a preliminary injunction that blocks the Justice Department from creating or operating its nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said statements by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that the program is not moving forward were not made under penalty of perjury, so the case is not moot. She ordered Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to file sworn declarations by June 19 stating that the fund will not proceed under any name. If they do, she indicated she is likely to dismiss the case.

Brinkema rejected arguments from Justice Department lawyer Andrew Block that recent statements to Congress and in court papers were enough to end the litigation. She pointed to President Trump's public support for the fund as evidence that it could still be revived.

The judge also questioned why Blanche has not rescinded the May 18 order that created the fund. Block said he had not spoken with Blanche about the matter. Brinkema called the lack of communication a "huge gap" in the record.

She described it as "problematic" that nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money could go to people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Brinkema read from a friend-of-the-court brief filed by Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., that called the fund an "immediate and dire threat" to the constitutional order.

The case was brought by a former prosecutor who worked on Jan. 6 cases, a California professor, the city of New Haven, Connecticut, and two nonprofit groups. Plaintiffs' lawyer Pooja Boisture said a continued injunction would cause no harm to the government.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs, called the ruling a "significant victory for the Constitution, the rule of law, and people in America."

The Justice Department announced the fund last month as part of a settlement in a lawsuit President Trump filed against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. The $1.776 billion program would have given five people appointed by the attorney general authority to distribute payments to people who claimed they were victims of "weaponization and lawfare."

In a separate case in Washington, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon declined to issue a similar injunction but warned the Justice Department, "Don't play possum with this court."