Attorney General Todd Blanche was confirmed to lead the Justice Department based on the flimsiest of promises. The former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump told holdout Republican senators that he would rescind an order setting up a slush fund for MAGA allies and not move to revive it.
But Senate Democrats are now wondering whether Blanche already has a work-around in mind — and they’re right to be skeptical, given how much money has already flowed into Trump allies’ pockets.
The so-called anti-weaponization fund was novel in its blatant corruption but tapped into a surprisingly mundane source of funding.
The 10 Democrats who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Blanche a letter last week questioning just what he has in store for the future, given his easily reversible pledge. In particular, the senators noted that the documents released ahead of his confirmation “make no assurance you will not use other mechanisms, including quietly settling administrative claims brought against the government, to compensate President Trump’s political allies, effectively accomplishing the goals of the Anti-Weaponization Fund.” Instead, they argued that the documents “create a clear avenue” for benefiting Trump’s supporters using the same loophole that Blanche had previously attempted to exploit.
The so-called anti-weaponization fund was novel in its blatant corruption but tapped into a surprisingly mundane source of funding. As originally designed in the shady settlement agreement, the $1.8 billion to be doled out to supposed victims of Democratic “lawfare.” All those funds were to be drawn from the Judgment Fund, an unlimited wellspring of money meant to prevent Congress from needing to appropriate individual sums every time the federal government loses a civil suit.
Since its establishment in the mid-1950s, the Judgment Fund has been humming along in the background to dispense cash to injured parties. But there have been several major changes to how the fund operates in that time. The fund’s payments originally maxed out at $100,000 and only covered final judgements in cases where the government had decisively lost. By 1961, Congress had amended the statute to allow payments to be dispersed in settlements where the suit could have ended up requiring monetary compensation. Today, the fund dispenses billions of dollars in financial damages each year with little congressional input.
Among the requests that Sen. Adam Schiff of California and his fellow Democrats put before Blanche are any guidance the DOJ has issued regarding the Judgment Fund, and also whether the DOJ and White House have ever communicated about specific awards from the fund. The Democrats also want “a list of all payments made under the Judgment Fund since January 20, 2025” provided to them. (The Treasury Department does have a public system to search these payments, but an attempt to calculate that total, even only accounting for the DOJ’s payments, leads to an error message.)
As MS NOW contributor Anthony Coley has previously noted, the (for now) moribund “anti-weaponization” fund isn’t the only potential avenue for Trump allies to receive payouts. The Federal Tort Claims Act exists to allow people harmed by government negligence or misconduct a way to get around the sovereign immunity that the United States otherwise possesses. And, as mentioned earlier, settlements under the FTCA are fair game for payment from the Judgment Fund. Among the Trump allies to have benefited from this process are former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign staffer Carter Page, who each received $1.25 million in their settlements earlier this year.
Today, the fund dispenses billions of dollars in financial damages each year with little congressional input.
The Judiciary Democrats highlighted reports that Blanche and others were looking into alternate methods of fulfilling the promise of the “anti-weaponization” fund, including for the benefit of Jan. 6 rioters. It’s easy to see how Trump’s IRS case that spawned the “anti-weaponization” fund, which was settled before a judge could rule on whether it was even a viable case, could then become a norm. Without additional oversight, a slew of cases filed under the FTCA statute could quickly be dismissed via a pre-determined “settlement” whose payout still requires tapping into the Judgment Fund.
The Judgment Fund was initially created to lessen the burden on a Congress whose workload had grown substantially over the decades. It’s clear now that too much agency has swung to the executive branch without an easy method for lawmakers to disapprove of potentially fraudulent arrangements.
It isn’t necessary to return to a world where the legislature must adjudicate every monetary judgement. But at bare minimum, Congress should enact both a bar on payouts to plaintiffs who took part in the Jan. 6 attack and a new process for reviewing settlements as suspect as the one Blanche authorized for the president’s benefit.
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