The settlement was signed by IRS chief executive officer Frank Bisignano, who is also the head of the Social Security Administration, as well as Stanley Woodward, the associate attorney general. The fund will allow claimants who believe they’ve been victims of political prosecutions and weaponization to seek compensation. It’ll be overseen by a five-person commission of people appointed by the attorney general.

The arrangement drew swift backlash from Democrats, who have described it as self-dealing and corruption, as well as concerns from some Republicans.

A Justice Department memo released Monday said Treasury is responsible for establishing an account for the fund, which will be financed through the federal judgment fund. The Treasury secretary must certify those payments into the fund.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/19/trump-settlement-fund-jan-6-00928221

Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘lawfare’ fund is making Republicans nervous

Senate Republicans are greeting the Justice Department’s announcement of a new “Anti-Weaponization Fund” with concern, confusion and questions — and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is offering up little clarity on how it will work.

At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday morning, Blanche fielded queries from members of both parties about the logistics of the $1.8 billion account, who would have oversight and whether it could function as a “slush fund” for individuals who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Democrats are, predictably, enraged by the terms of the settlement for President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the government for the leak of his tax information, which resulted in the creation of this account to benefit targets of “weaponization and lawfare.”

“There is no level below which these folks will not go,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I) said in an interview. “It is just disgusting, having come off Law Enforcement Week, to have set up a slush fund to pay off people who attack police officers.”

But Republicans are also signaling deep discomfort with the arrangement, as well as frustration that they weren’t given the answers they were looking for.

“I’ve got more questions than I’ve heard answers for, and … I didn’t hear anything that gave me certainty in terms of how this all comes together,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), after attending the hearing with Blanche. “Can the president just say $1.87 billion? … I don’t know enough about it to feel comfortable.”

Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jerry Moran of Kansas — the top Republicans on the full Appropriations committee and the panel that oversees DOJ funding, respectively — both pressed Blanche at the hearing to explain how payouts from the fund would be managed and who might receive them.

Blanche said repeatedly it would be up to the “commissioners” to determine who would get financial compensation for being victimized by the government. He repeatedly said anyone — even President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who was prosecuted and convicted on gun and tax charges before being pardoned by his father — could apply for compensation.

But he also wouldn’t rule out that Jan. 6 rioters convicted of assaulting police might qualify, a deeply sensitive issue for lawmakers who were at the Capitol that day.

Vice President JD Vance, at a news conference later Tuesday afternoon, further confused the matter by saying “we’re not trying to give money to anybody who attacked a police officer” but also that “we do have people who were accused of attacking law enforcement officers” and “we’re going to evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he was “not a big fan” of the fund and that he didn’t “see a purpose for that.”

“I think that there are, and will be continue to be, a lot of questions around that, that the administration is going to have to answer,” he said later at a news conference.

Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the White House’s staunchest allies who once championed a payout for lawmakers who had their phone data subpoenaed by the Biden administration, said Tuesday he believed senators needed more information.

“Conceptually I understand what he’s trying to do, but I don’t know,” he said. “I think we need to ask more questions.”

A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s not yet clear how Republicans will reconcile their desire for answers with their waning appetite for going against Trump, who has yet again placed the GOP in an awkward situation: Endorse a policy that Democrats are casting as a self-enrichment scheme or get crosswise with the president, who is successfully going after his political enemies in midterm primary campaigns.

Appropriators could choose to put some guardrails on the massive settlement account by restricting funding from going towards its implementation or clearly defining who could benefit from it. Murkowski, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said she would have “serious and significant problems” if the money was given to those convicted for their part in the Capitol attack.

But Moran concluded his probing questions of Blanche by saying the Appropriations Committee did not have jurisdiction “in a sense, because this is mandatory spending” — a sign he may not seek to be proactive in placing limits on how the fund might function.

In a further apparent effort to deflect the issue, Moran asked Blanche during the hearing whether he had spoken to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the account. Blanche replied that he had not “over the past 24 hours.”

Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters that the situation was akin to the $2 million settlement the DOJ reached with former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who sued the government after the Trump administration released their text messages in apparent violation of the federal Privacy Act.

“This has happened before in a Democrat administration, so I’m not sure you should be surprised that there’s justice for people that have had the government weaponized against them,” Grassley said.

Still, he added, “if there’s questions” about the new account, “we’re going to be able to discuss it directly when we have the attorney general before our committee for our usual oversight.”

The panel has not yet scheduled such a hearing with Blanche.

>Fund
Why does the conservative media bias constantly do this?
It's a shake down of taxpayers for people who took part in trump's failed coup along with enriching himself.

So the IRS leaked his tax returns illegally. I would fuck them in the ass for it legally too if I were him. You guys are just faggots.

>>1515712
>I would fuck them in the ass for it
>You guys are just faggots.

>>1515712
It's not like this is coming out of their salaries. Arguably that already happened when he did a restructuring, fired around a quarter of them, and created a "CEO" to lord over them in defiance of the Appointments Clause. This thing now is where he helps himself to the federal judgement fund. Essentially, it's just treasury money.

>>1515722
>it's just treasury money.
It's our money.

>>1515723
That's what I meant to say, yeah. It's not actually money that is otherwise allocated to the IRS for them to use.

>>1515576
Because nobody wants to admit that the US government is dead. All those checks and balances and laws never meant a fucking thing.
Nearly 2 billion dollars stolen from us, it's OUR FUCKING MONEY, right before our eyes, going directly into Trump's pocket, for completely bullshit reasons, and absolutely nobody's doing anything to stop it. This is why people keep trying to kill him.

>>1515725
Yet you ignore me when I keep mentioning 2 trillion every year to ACA and the billionaires you hate.
I have nothing but contempt for you.
I do not believe you own your complaints.

>>1515734
the ACA was another republican grift though (romneycare)

>>1515734
The thing about the ACA is it's better than what we had before, which is why Republicans haven't repealed it, and the only thing you could replace it with is socialized medicine, which Dems are openly in favor of and bitch about not having constantly, and which is why Republicans have never put forward a replacement plan in the over decade and a half it's been around.

Bringing that shit up as some sort of gotcha against the Dems is fucking nonsensical.

Doubly so because the bill was watered down from a fucking public option in an attempt to appeal to the right.

To borrow your words
>I have nothing but contempt for you.
>I do not believe you own your complaints.

>>1515740
False. The Republicans haven't repealed it because it's extremely profitable for insurance companies that were lobbying Republicans not to repeal or when Trump tried. The bill was written by Democrats, for Democrats. Not a single Republican voted for it, so saying they watered it down for Republicans I'd retarded. Romneycare and the ACA were nothing more than a bail out for the insurance companies. The difference in price with and without the ACA is so awful for middle income families that it isn't even competitive with private insurance.

>>1515741
Indeed but you'e got it twisted.
Coping?
>The difference in price with and without the ACA is so awful for middle income families that it isn't even competitive with private insurance.
This really proves you know nothing.
ACA IS private insurance.

>>1515746
The typical libtard cope response of just saying the person doesn't know what they're talking about while you're just making shit up. I had an ACA for plan and it was garbage because it's so restrictive. I have private insurance that is cheaper and exponentially better now with the same deductible

>>1515748
I'm not a libtard at all. ACA is private insruace.
It's offered by companies such as United Healthcare, and Bluecross Blue Shield.
The only public option is Original Medicare, which is so trash Medigap exists.
Additionally the only difference between an Individual ACA plan and an Individual plan is that the ACA plans are offered on the marketplace.
So, you're confused or purchased a shit plan from the marketplace.
All in all the differentiation is null unless you qualify for a Premium Tax Credit or are eligible for the newer scam of ICRA.

>>1515748
People keep telling you that you don't know what you're talking about not because they're liberals or because they don't understand the issue, it's because you actually don't know what you're talking about.

>>1515748
Holy shit you're retarded. No wonder we get robbed blind by our ruling when this country is full of people like you.

>>1515565
>$1.8 billion
No, it's $1.776 billion. On the dot.
They're not even fucking trying to hide what this is. And why would they? Nobody's stopping them.

>>1515741
>Not a single Republican voted for it, so saying they watered it down for Republicans I'd retarded
It was watered down in an attempt to get Republican votes. The attempt failing doesn't change what fucking happened.

>>1515908
>>1515741
Like I know Congress has been fucked for about 2 decades at this point other than when Republican were shitting their pants during COVID and had to do a socialism to prevent the torches and pitchforks coming out, but, early on in the Obama administration, there was actually hope for bipartisanship.

It was false hope destroyed by the "party of no" strategy from Republicans, but it briefly existed.

>>1515910
That was before the Tea Party™ kicked the conservative victim mentality/persecution complex into high gear. They couldn't have done that under Bush, but after Obama came into office it started with IRS conspiracy theories and then went on to gamergate and then white replacement bullshit, which all went mainstream on Fox News.

>>1515926
Republican obstructionism started before gamergate and had fuck all to do with the Tea Party. Mainstream Republican Congressional leadership simply committed themselves to blocking all Dem legislation after Obama came in. They openly said their chief legislative agenda was making Obama a one term president, not actually accomplishing anything by negotiating form the minority like was normal for most of our nation's history up to that point.

Compromise became a dirty word, horse trading became impossible, and our politics have been fucked since. And shit went from going downhill to falling off a cliff after. First was Citizen's United in 2010. Then Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019. Then they killed the VRA this year. Each decision further entrenching political extremism and non-compromise as politically advantageous.

I genuinely don't see a way out outside of court reform or the political collapse of one or both parties, whichever comes first.

>>1515943
>I genuinely don't see a way out outside of court reform or the political collapse of one or both parties, whichever comes first.
I think this whenever I see people talking about the midterms, primaries, protesting, the next administration. That this is just a really bad administration that we need to vote out and get things back to normal. Fucking christ, guys.

>>1515944>this is just a really bad administration that we need to vote out and get things back to normal

That's literally true though. This is just a really bad admin. It's insane how much worse this admin is than the status quo of either side. Part of the reason it's so bad is the dipshit in charge keeps doing illegal shit, like writing EO's about things he doesn't have authority over. That implicitly means this is a problem with this president specifically.

Does that mean America has no other problems with its government? Of fucking course not. But it's hilarious the way you look down on everyone else here.

>Can you imagine wanting to work within the boundaries of the established system of government to effect change? What fucking losers! It's way better to write it off as a losing battle and just not do anything. I was part of the overwhelming majority of Americans who didn't vote in the last election, this is my fault, btw.

Fuck you you arrogant little shit.

>>1515944
Normal being?
Democrats in power fucking shit up. No one complaining?
I'll pass on normal. People voted against normal.

>>1515972
>Looks around at a schizophrenic government randomly attacking allies and manufacturing.

>ThIs Is BeTtE-

Keep telling me how the sky is neon green, dumbass.