Trump’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is ‘dead’. So why does a judge want its architects exposed?

A US federal judge wants to know who helped create the controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” linked to President Donald Trump, even though Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the fund is now “dead”, the NBC reported.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis of the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday granted part of a request from plaintiffs seeking information from the federal government. Among the details the administration has been ordered to provide are the names of the people who helped design the structure of the fund, according to a person who was in court when the order was issued.

The New York Times reported details of the judge’s order.

For the plaintiffs, the ruling marks an important step in finding out how the fund came into being.

“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, the nonprofit representing the plaintiffs, 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.”

What was the $1.8 billion fund?

The fund was created through a settlement involving Trump, two of his sons, his company and the Internal Revenue Service.

Under the arrangement, roughly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money was to be set aside for payouts to people who claimed they had “suffered weaponization and lawfare”.

One particularly controversial aspect was that the provision could potentially cover January 6 rioters who had been convicted of violent crimes and later pardoned by Trump.

The arrangement soon ran into legal trouble.

In May, a federal judge temporarily blocked the fund after a lawsuit was filed by a fired January 6 prosecutor and a law professor who had been sued by the Trump administration. Career IRS workers later joined the legal challenge against the Trump-IRS agreement, which also provided immunity from IRS audits to Trump and several members of his family.

Why is the fund still an issue?

The proposal faced criticism from both Republicans and Democrats in Washington and became a problem for Blanche’s nomination as attorney general.

Blanche later put in writing that the fund “is rescinded” and that “there is no fund.”

But that did not end the questions surrounding it.

The document signed by Blanche did not include the other signatories to the original agreement. Critics argued that this left open a legal route through which the fund and the related IRS immunity could potentially be revived.

Trump himself has also stopped short of completely rejecting the idea.

At a Cabinet meeting this summer, he said the fund “is dead, but you know, I wish it weren’t,” adding that he believed “people were horribly treated.”

January 6 defendant seeks $1 million

The issue came back into focus this week when Treniss Evans III, a January 6 defendant seeking a $1 million payout from the government, posted a photograph of himself in Blanche’s office.

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 participation in the storming of the US Capitol.