By Andrew Goudsward and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge indefinitely blocked a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund supported by President Donald Trump on Friday, giving the administration one week to provide a sworn statement that the fund will not go forward.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia said the Justice Department’s public pronouncements that the fund would not move forward were not enough to prevent the judge from ruling on whether the plan is legal.
Brinkema issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from creating the fund while the lawsuit moves forward. The case was brought by a group of individuals and organizations who alleged they were victims of political targeting by the Trump administration and would be ineligible for compensation from the fund.
The judge said it was “problematic” that the administration sought to set up a pool of taxpayer money to favor “an extremely small group” that many Americans feel engaged in “unacceptable” conduct.
The fund emerged from a settlement agreement between Trump and the Justice Department over the president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
The Justice Department set up a $1.776 billion fund overseen by a five-member commission to dole out payments to those who show they were victims of “lawfare” and “weaponization,” terms Trump and his allies have used to describe investigations and criminal cases against them.
When asked for comment on the ruling, the Justice Department pointed to previous statements by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche saying the fund was not moving forward.
UNCERTAINTY OVER PLAN’S STATUS
Last week, Blanche told lawmakers the Trump administration was not moving forward with the plan, which critics have called a slush fund. But he refused to make that commitment in writing when he was asked to do so by Democratic lawmakers, and Trump has repeatedly expressed his support for the concept of the fund, prompting questions as to whether the administration was actually abandoning the fund.
Brinkema cited Trump’s public statements in recent days supporting the concept of the fund as evidence that the administration may still be looking to proceed with the plan in some fashion.
At a court hearing on Friday, Justice Department lawyer Andrew Block said the plaintiffs’ claims were too speculative and urged the judge not to issue an order that “rests on hypotheticals.”
Block also asked the judge to credit statements from Blanche to Congress and from Justice Department lawyers in court filings that the fund would not proceed.
Reuters reported earlier on Friday that Trump allies were training their focus on a possibly more viable path to pay supporters who claim they are victims of government abuse.
Brinkema pushed Block on why Blanche has not formally rescinded the order setting up the fund, echoing a question Block heard from a different federal judge in a related case on Wednesday.
On Friday, Block said he did not know, repeating the same answer he gave on Wednesday. Brinkema replied: “There’s a huge gap in the record if you don’t have the answer to that question.”
Brinkema said she would give the acting attorney general and Treasury secretary one week to sign off on a sworn statement declaring the fund would not go forward. She indicated she may revisit her ruling if the Trump administration submitted such a declaration and asked the plaintiffs in the case if they would agree to drop the lawsuit entirely.
“If the fund is truly rescinded, where is the sworn declaration saying so?” said Amy Powell, a former DOJ senior trial counsel and litigation director at Lawyers for Good Government. “The court appears unwilling to treat political statements and media reports as a substitute for a formal record.”
Brinkema had issued a temporary halt to the fund last week that was set to expire on Friday.
“I don’t have in this record the type of uncontested evidence that this will not be repeated,” she said during the Friday court hearing.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff in Washington; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Michelle Nichols, Matthew Lewis and Deepa Babington)
Comments