U.S. Senate Judiciary Ranking Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois and former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn (right) at a press conference on Capitol Hill opposing the Trump administration’s $1.776 billion “anti-gun” fund on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democrats, police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and their lawyers spoke out Tuesday against the Trump administration’s proposed $1.776 billion “anti-gun” fund.
The press conference, organized by liberal litigation organizations Public Citizen and Common Cause, came as Senate Democrats put pressure on their Republican colleagues battle with just a handful of votes left to pass an immigration budget reconciliation bill.
Democrats plan to introduce several amendments that would propose guardrails for the fund if and when Senate Republicans bring up the $72 billion immigration package, which President Donald Trump said he wanted to have on his desk by June 1.
“The idea that we’re going to create a fund to provide some sort of relief for the police beatings on Capitol Hill is outrageous to me to think that the Republican Party would even consider that,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“That is why we are making every effort to ensure that there is a record vote against this dark money fund,” Durbin of Illinois said as former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who is running for the Democratic nomination for a U.S. House seat in Maryland, stood behind him.
Dunn and former Washington Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who also attended the press conference, are there sue the Trump administration over the fund. Dunn and Hodges were both dispatched to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and Hodges described in the complaint how he believed he was dying when rioters attacked him.
“Defeat the police, support Donald Trump, get paid,” Dunn said. “Cause a riot, get paid. I think that’s Donald Trump putting his mob in custody.”
Trump pardoned Nearly all of the defendants were charged in the attack on the Capitol that day, and the prison sentences of more than a dozen who helped plan the attack were commuted.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly referred to those involved in the riots as “patriots” and accused the Biden administration of using the Justice Department as a weapon.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the fund was not targeted at those charged in the Jan. 6 attack and that anyone with a political affiliation could “be heard and seek redress.”
IRS comparison
The Justice Department announced the figure was $1.776 billion Fund on May 18 as a condition of Trump dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the disclosure of his 2019 tax returns.
A day later, the DOJ issued another command As part of Trump’s voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit, it was declared that Trump and his family would be forever immune from government investigations, including tax audits.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said the Justice Department is “under real pressure now, and in fact the Trumpsters are starting to say they might have to give up their slush fund for cop thugs.”
Whitehouse, another senior member of the Judiciary Committee, also criticized the Justice Department’s order indefinitely exempting Trump family members from future tax audits.
“Even if they abolish the corrupt cop thugs’ slush fund, even if they abolish the corrupt Trump family’s tax amnesty, there’s still a very interesting thing left, and that is the question of whether the corrupt Trumpsters committed fraud in the courts,” Whitehouse said.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida reopened Trump’s IRS case on May 29 followed a filing by 35 former federal judges who argued that the DOJ “deceived” the court by not providing details of the “anti-gun” fund to the judge.
The government has until June 12 to respond.
Future of the fund unclear
The Justice Department announced this on social media on Monday post The government would comply with a separate interim court order suspending the fund but would not respond to the state’s newsroom on Tuesday Reports that the department planned to eliminate the fund entirely despite intense scrutiny, even from Republicans.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said during the event that the organization is awaiting further details from the DOJ.
“We are in a position to trust but verify, and therefore have requested that the Department of Justice send us a response today requesting confirmation that it has taken a number of steps to comply with this order,” Perryman said. “We have also asked them to confirm the status of the fund as it seems to have leaked that they are somehow abandoning the fund.”
Democracy Forward represents multiple plaintiffs in one suit They challenged the nearly $1.8 billion fund, including a former Justice Department prosecutor who was fired on Jan. 6 and a university professor who was charged with a crime and then acquitted by a jury of participating in protests against an immigration raid in 2025.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia on May 29 ordered prevented the Justice Department, Treasury Department and other senior administration officials from taking additional action to establish or make payments from the fund.
