President Donald Trump has attempted to justify a new $1.7 billion “slush fund” for taxpayers to reimburse Jan. 6 rioters.
On Monday, Trump’s Justice Department announced the establishment of the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate MAGA allies he believed were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration.
In exchange for the fund, where taxpayers foot the bill, Trump dropped his unprecedented $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in connection to, among other grievances, the 2022 raid of his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
The fund’s establishment came ahead of court deadlines in the IRS case, which would have seen the Trump administration obligated to prove there was an actual case to be heard.
The Justice Department claimed the fund would provide a “systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.”
During a healthcare affordability event at the White House on Monday, Trump was directly questioned why taxpayers should cover the costs.
“Well, it’s been very well received, I have to tell you,” Trump claimed.
Trump, who turns 80 in less than a month, then claimed he knew “very little” about the Anti-Weaponization Fund.
“I wasn’t involved in the whole creation of it, and the negotiation. But this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated, horribly treated, it’s anti-weaponization. They’ve been weaponized,” Trump said.
“They’ve been, in some cases, imprisoned wrongly,” he continued. “They paid legal fees that they didn’t have. They’ve gone bankrupt, their lives have been destroyed. And they turned out to be right. I mean, it was a terrible period of time in the history of our country. And they worked on it... I know the Justice Department, it’s really been working on it very hard.”
House Democrats are aiming to block Trump’s “self-dealing settlement,” labeling the “unconstitutional” announcement a “huge slush fund” the president can use to reward his allies.
“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump... to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes,” Ranking Member Jamie Raskin said in a statement.
Ways and Means Ranking Member Richard Neal said the fund “only deepens the stench of corruption.”
“The American people deserve a government that works for them, not Trump’s government by the grifter and for the grifter,” Neal said.
Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 people on the first day of his second term as president. They were convicted in connection with the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, where his supporters violently assaulted police, smashed windows and raided congressional offices, fueled by the belief the 2020 election had been stolen.
Trump went on to say on Monday that rioters were “really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt, with corrupt people running it, and they’re getting reimbursed for their legal fees and the other things that they had to suffer.”
Trump dodged answering a question on whether he or his family members would seek compensation from the fund.
“A committee is being set up of very talented people, very highly respected people,” he stated. “And again, I didn’t do this deal. It was told to me yesterday, they said they’re doing something.”
Trump added, “I do believe there has to be compensation for people that were destroyed. You have families absolutely destroyed and it’s all going to be determined by a committee of four or five people that are respected and very brilliant at what they do.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
The president’s attorney general would appoint the commission’s members to oversee the fund, with the Justice Department stating that Trump could remove any member.
The department said the allocation of $1.7 billion was based “upon the projected valuation of future claimants’ claims.”
At least five rioters have been arrested on unrelated charges since being pardoned by Trump. Ryan Nichols was arrested last week for allegedly threatening a man with a gun in a church parking lot.
Last October, Christopher Moynihan was arrested for threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Andrew Taake, also pardoned by Trump for his violent role in the Jan. 6 riots, avoided prison last November for child sex offenses because of the sweeping pardons.
Taake, 37, pleaded guilty to soliciting what he believed was a 15-year-old girl for sex. However, the Daily Beast learned he was allowed to dodge prison for the sex offense due to the prison-time “credit” he accrued after attacking a police officer on Jan. 6.
