A federal judge rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to end a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, saying that she didn’t trust assertions by administration officials that the fund would not move forward.
The order filed Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia allows the case to proceed to discovery over objections from the government. It’s likely to add to pressure mounting on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to formally declare the fund dead ahead of his confirmation hearing next month for the DOJ’s top job.
Blanche testified to Congress this month that the administration would abandon the fund after lawmakers from both parties voiced alarm about its legality and the possibility of payouts going to people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Government lawyers later said in court that it was not moving forward.
Brinkema, who had indefinitely blocked the fund in a ruling earlier this month, told the government she would drop the case if officials submitted declarations affirming, under penalty of perjury, that the program wouldn’t proceed in any form.
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Government lawyers declined, instead arguing in court papers late last week that those declarations were unnecessary and that the case should be dismissed.
In her order, Brinkema said the government had “refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representations about the Fund not going forward.” She pointed to Trump’s “consistent support” for the fund and Blanche’s testimony in Congress that the fund remains “important.”
The Justice Department created the fund in May as part of a deal to end a lawsuit by Trump and his sons against the IRS over the leak of their tax returns by a contractor. Officials said the fund would compensate people who claimed to have been unfairly prosecuted or investigated by federal authorities.
While Blanche said several times in his June 2 appearance before the House Appropriations Committee that the fund was done, he refused to put such a guarantee in writing.
Brinkema said the promise to abandon the fund was not enough to nix the legal challenge, which was brought by the advocacy group Democracy Forward on behalf of several plaintiffs, including a former federal prosecutor who handled Jan. 6 cases.
“A civil suit does not necessarily become moot when the defendants agree to stop the conduct at issue in the litigation,” Brinkema said.
The judge pushed back on arguments by government lawyers that it was beyond her constitutional authority to seek a written assurance from DOJ officials. A declaration rescinding the fund, she said, “would have sufficient evidentiary weight to render this litigation moot.”
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the order Thursday, referring to previous remarks by Blanche indicating the administration was not taking any steps to set up the fund.
Democracy Forward said in a statement on social media that the judge “saw through the admin’s backtracking, misleading, and conflicting remarks and is – yet again – holding them accountable.”
Lawmakers, too, are continuing to push for legally binding mechanisms that would ensure the fund can’t be revived.
On Thursday, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said he would try to force a floor vote on a bill to permanently block the Trump administration from setting up the fund.
The No Carte Blanche Act — a wry reference to the acting attorney general — would bar financing of the fund and prevent the administration from steering taxpayer dollars to Jan. 6 offenders, political appointees and Trump himself.
“Although Todd Blanche initially said the $1.8 billion slush fund would not move forward, his own Justice Department emphatically refuses to commit that promise to writing, despite repeated requests from Congress and the courts,” Raskin said in a statement.
Blanche is set to sit for a confirmation hearing on July 15 and 16. Some Republican senators, including Thom Tillis of North Carolina, say they are looking for formal action from Blanche in the coming weeks to put an end to the fund. Blanche has signaled to some senators that he is open to it, as Punchbowl News reported Thursday.
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