How Trump’s massive ‘slush fund’ sparked lawsuits, galvanized Republicans, and revived them on January 6th

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-gun” fund has come under fire for its potential for corruption, dividing even Republicans in Congress who rarely engage with President Donald Trump’s decisions and policies.

Among the biggest concerns: Could riot defendants pardoned on January 6, 2021, who attacked police officers claim a piece of the pie and essentially be rewarded for committing political violence?

Advocates are also challenging in court the structure of the fund, which hides details from the public, including the names of applicants and the amounts paid out.

Nikhel Sus, senior counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also known as CREW, which filed suit against the fund, told States Newsroom the administration’s order was a “blatant usurpation of Congress’s authority.”

The fund set up by the Justice Department to settle Trump’s multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the IRS has also complicated Senate Republicans’ plans to pass an immigration funding package with a basic majority. Some Republican senators are refusing to vote unless the legislation includes guardrails for the fund.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Republican senators on Capitol Hill on May 21 to defend the fund, but many Republican lawmakers not convinced and many questions still remain.

Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told According to reporters, the fund is “stupid on stilts” and resembles “tyranny.”

Others dealt with questions in town halls during the break in Congress.

“I don’t believe a penny of any fund should ever go to a January 6th insurrectionist who was at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021…I want to be very clear…I clearly believe that Congress needs to play an oversight role here before I can sign or support this,” U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., said May 26 at a town hall in Norfolk, Nebraska.

What is the “Anti-Gun” Fund?

In exchange for Trump and his family dropping a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over tax return disclosures in 2019, the DOJ ordered one to be set up Compensation Fund to the tune of $1.776 billion – a nod to the country’s founding.

As part of the agreement, Trump also agreed to drop an administrative lawsuit seeking damages related to what Blanche called an “unlawful” FBI raid on the president’s Mar-a-Lago residence, part of the Biden administration’s case against Trump for allegedly hoarding classified documents after he left office.

Trump also agreed to drop a 2019 DOJ-related damages lawsuit Inquiry into Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Blanche introduced the fund on May 18 as a way to provide reparations to “victims of law enforcement.”

“The government machinery should never be used as a weapon against any American, and it is the intent of this department to right the wrongs previously committed while ensuring that something like this never happens again,” Blanche said in a press release.

The fund is governed by five commissioners selected by the attorney general, one of whom is selected in consultation with Congress. According to the DOJ, the president has the authority to remove any member.

The department maintains the fund is impartial. In addition to money, the DOJ will issue formal apologies to those eligible, officials said.

Who is trying to restrict or close the fund?

House Democrats tried to intervene in the settlement of the president’s IRS case, but U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams dismissed the case on Trump’s terms. Williams was appointed to the Southern District of Florida bench by President Barack Obama in 2010.

On May 27, nearly three dozen former federal judges urged Williams to reopen the case, arguing that the Trump administration had “deceived” the court by not providing the judge with details of the “anti-gun” fund.

Next the judges arguedThe DOJ also claims that the settlement forever exempts Trump and his family from tax audits and any other claims of a federal agency.

“The parties to this case are using this lawsuit as legal justification for these actions,” the justices argued.

Proposed legislation has also appeared in the House and Senate.

A non-partisan one The invoice Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), both running for re-election in swing districts, are proposing to ban the utilize of federal money to settle claims on the anti-gun fund.

“The bipartisan Transparency for American Taxpayers Act ensures that federal funds cannot be used for this fund without the transparency, oversight and legal protections that the American people deserve. Tax dollars will not become a discretionary disbursement fund. Transparency is not optional. Accountability is non-negotiable,” Fitzpatrick said in a press release.

Suozzi described the agreement as a “slush fund to pay off January 6th criminals and other maladaptive henchmen!”

When pressed During a May 19 Senate hearing on whether defendants convicted of assaulting police officers on Jan. 6 would be eligible for the fund, Blanche said, “Anyone in this country can apply” and final decisions will be made by the fund’s commissioners.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., announced plans to introduce painful changes when and if the Senate GOP brings up its immigration control funding bill.

Van Hollen said he would call for a vote on an amendment to block payments to the Jan. 6 defendants sentenced of violent crime and sexual abuse of children.

The Maryland senator also said he would introduce an amendment that would ban members of Congress from receiving payouts.

“And as it currently stands, members of Congress have a chance to profit from this corrupt scheme. If Republicans don’t completely eliminate this fund, they should at least join us in banning members of Congress from profiting from it,” Van Hollen said in a written statement on May 21.

Who is complaining?

Several lawsuits have been filed against the fund.

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Washington Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges defending the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, argued in federal court that the pardoned rioters could utilize payout money to organize.

“In the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century, President Donald J. Trump created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to finance the insurgents and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name,” they argued in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Legal advocacy groups, including CREW, Democracy Forward and Common Cause, have also challenged the fund in court.

Through the order, the administration has given itself “final, unverifiable authority to distribute nearly $1.8 billion in funds not appropriated by Congress for this purpose to people it subjectively believes are victims of so-called lawfare or weapons,” CREW’s Sus said in an interview.

The fund’s structure also violates transparency laws, Sus said. Not least of these would be the transfer of $1.776 billion from the government’s court fund in a single transaction into a separate, unaccountable pot of money.

Under current law, the Treasury Department publicly publishes on a website at least once a month the amounts the U.S. government pays to plaintiffs.

By withdrawing a lump sum, they “completely circumvent the disclosure law that Congress passed specifically for this purpose and requires disclosure for any settlement,” said Sus, whose organization filed the request Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

CREW also argues that the DOJ’s order is arbitrary and capricious.

“I think the arbitrary choice of 1776 as the number for their (fund) valuation is the definition of an arbitrary, precious action – like they just did it because they thought it was cool,” he said.

“And that’s not how the government should operate. It should actually consider the facts, it should have a reasoned explanation for why it does things.”

Another group of plaintiffs is represented in Virginia by the legal groups Democracy Forward and Common Cause.

The plaintiffs include Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor on Jan. 6 who was fired by the DOJ in June 2025, and Joseph Caravello, a California university professor who was charged with assaulting a federal officer after protesting an immigration raid last summer. A jury acquitted Caravello in April.

The nine-count lawsuit alleges, in part, that the fund violates plaintiffs’ First and Fifth Amendment rights and violates the authority of Congress.

The fund “does not provide benefits to victims of ideological attacks by Democrats and Republicans alike; instead, it provides benefits to those who have held views that have been or were perceived to be in opposition to Democratic administrations, but not to those who have held views that have been or have been perceived to be oppositional to Republican administrations,” the statement said Complaint filed in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Juan Salinas II of the Nebraska Examiner contributed to this report.