Key takeaways:
- U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis ordered the government to disclose the names of people who designed the structure of the nearly $1.8 billion fund.
- The fund was created as part of a settlement involving Trump, two of his sons, his company and the IRS, and it was aimed at payouts for people who “suffered weaponization and lawfare.”
- Blanche has said the fund “is dead” and “never started,” but critics say the rescission document did not include the original signatories, leaving a possible path for revival.
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to identify who designed the structure of a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” reviving scrutiny of a proposed compensation program that Attorney General Todd Blanche has said “is dead.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis of the Eastern District of Virginia issued the order Friday, granting part of a motion by plaintiffs seeking to compel discovery from the federal government, NBC News reported, citing a person who was in the courtroom. The order includes disclosing the names of the people who came up with the fund’s structure, according to that account. The New York Times also reported on the details of the judge’s order.
The discovery fight is part of a lawsuit brought by Democracy Forward, a nonprofit representing plaintiffs who include a fired Jan. 6 prosecutor and a college professor. The Guardian identified the professor as having been acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest against an immigration raid in California. Career IRS employees also joined the lawsuit challenging the agreement tied to the fund.
“Today’s order granting discovery is a significant step in getting to the bottom of the slush fund,” Aman George, senior counsel at Democracy Forward, said in a statement. “We will continue to meet the government in court until our investigation is complete and the slush fund is permanently halted.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment Friday evening.
The fund was created as part of a settlement agreement involving President Donald Trump, two of his sons, his company and the Internal Revenue Service. It was designed to set aside roughly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for people who “suffered weaponization and lawfare.” NBC News reported that the provision could extend to Jan. 6 rioters convicted of violent crimes and later pardoned by Trump. The Guardian reported that Democrats maintain the proposed fund would have compensated prosecuted and since-pardoned Jan. 6 rioters, among others.
The settlement also made Trump and several family members immune from IRS audits, according to NBC News. The Guardian reported that the proposed compensation scheme grew out of a settlement Trump reached with the IRS over a lawsuit related to the leak of his tax returns and that the agreement shielded the president and his family from future tax audits.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the fund in May after the lawsuit was filed. In July, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled that the parties had not truly been adverse and that Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS had served as a pretense for creating the fund.
“There was never adverseness between the parties; there was never a case or controversy; and there was never a question as to who would prevail,” Williams wrote, according to The Guardian. She said the lawsuit had been brought “for an improper purpose – to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact.”
The fund drew bipartisan criticism in Washington, including from Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and threatened Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general. Blanche later put in writing that the fund “is rescinded” and that “there is no fund.” He also told Fox News Sunday, “The fund is dead or whatever word you want to use. It never started. So, it’s not as if the fund is coming back.”
But critics have said the document did not include the signatories to the original agreement, leaving open the possibility that the fund and related IRS protections could be revived. Blanche has said “there were never commissioners” in charge of the “payout pot.” Democratic Sen. Cory Booker said the agreement offered “nothing … no guarantees whatsoever that this slush fund still can’t go forward.”
Trump has not ruled out payouts through another avenue. At a Cabinet meeting in July, he said the fund “is dead, but you know, I wish it weren’t,” adding, “To be honest with you, I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused.”
This week, Treniss Evans III, a Jan. 6 defendant seeking a $1 million payout from the government, posted a photo of himself in Blanche’s office, NBC News reported. A person familiar with the matter said Evans did not meet with the attorney general. Evans was previously sentenced to 20 days in prison and three years of probation for his role in storming the Capitol.
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