For all intents and purposes, the Trump administration’s $1.776 billion compensation fund is no more. Attorney General Todd Blanche has withdrawn the fund, widely panned by both parties as a “slush fund,” and he has told Congress that the initiative will not be revived.
There is some question, however, about whether there’s a different avenue for the White House to reward the Jan. 6 rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol in Donald Trump’s name. With this in mind, some notable civil suits were filed this week. The New Republic reported:
A group of defendants prosecuted for their actions in the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection are suing the federal government, claiming that their rights were violated.
One defendant, Lisa Eisenhart, claims that she was “targeted, arrested, prosecuted, and punished because of her constitutionally protected expressive and associational activity as a member of the protesters who gathered at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
At this point, there’s probably little point in dwelling on how absurd it is to characterize a violent insurrectionist riot as “constitutionally protected expressive and associational activity.” Suffice it to say, that is not an accurate summary of the assault on American democracy.
Of greater interest is whether the Jan. 6 plaintiffs are likely to receive the compensatory and punitive damages they’re seeking.
As recently as last month, during a Justice Department press conference, the attorney general said, in reference to Jan. 6 rioters, “The president feels very strongly, as do I, that there were people who were victims of a Department of Justice that was absolutely weaponized, and he feels very strongly that he would want to — to make them whole, as do I, but it will not be through the anti-weaponization fund.”
That came on the heels of Trump appearing on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” and saying, “If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve.” He added, “Many of those people should be compensated.”
This is why the apparent demise of the slush fund tells only part of a larger story: The Republican administration still has other financial spigots — and by all appearances, it still wants to use them. And this new lawsuit helps create an opportunity to make that happen.
Indeed, the White House has already arranged for generous payouts, financed entirely by American taxpayers, to the president’s political allies through dubious settlement agreements — to the tune of several million taxpayer dollars — and the attorney general has already suggested, more than once, that even more payouts are possible, if not likely.
The process is entirely straightforward: 1) A Trump ally files a meritless civil suit; 2) Trump’s Justice Department offers Trump’s ally a generous check, financed entirely by taxpayers; and 3) the Trump ally agrees to drop the meritless civil suit and walks away with a lucrative payout.
The question is less about whether the administration will try to use this method to pay rioters, and more about how much this gambit is likely to cost the American public. Watch this space.
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