In a move that has derailed plans to put out some $1.776 billion, a judge has frozen the fund in its tracks. Now, ahead of a 12 June hearing, there is a high-stakes tussle over who, if anyone, gets made whole for what they see as government overreach.
It was US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, who put down the temporary order to keep officials from moving forward with the fund. In the court’s view, the status quo has to be maintained so public money isn’t handed out in a way you can’t take back while these matters are being litigated.
What the court order changes now
This means the administration can’t process applications or put the programme in motion; payments are off the table. The Justice Department hasn’t even put together the five-person commission to sort out who is in and who is out, and filings show no claims have been touched yet.
If you were looking to the fund for some measure of justice, this interlude makes for hard times. To the naysayers, it’s a welcome check on a plan they fear will funnel taxpayer cash to folks with convictions in hotly contested cases, like those from 6 January.
How the fund came about and who decides
You have to go back to a settlement with the IRS to find where this started. It was part of the deal to put to rest a $10 billion suit by Donald Trump over his tax returns. Last week they made it public: a way to put a price on being a victim of what he calls lawfare.
The dollars will be drawn from the federal Judgment Fund, an old standby for settling accounts. A panel of five, put in place by Attorney General Todd Blanche, will be the ones to make the call. They’ll tell you anyone can apply, come from where they may.
Legal backlash and plaintiffs
They didn’t have to wait long for the pushback. Democracy Forward and others have asked the court to tear it down, saying it’s a shambles of a programme with no oversight. ‘This is a win for the rule of law and the American people,’ says their head, Skye Perryman.
‘You don’t get to use a political rewards program with other people’s money,’ Perryman put it. Then there’s Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which in a separate suit has called the whole thing a ‘slush fund’ born of a ‘sham.’ Another complaint has it that the Trump-Vance side would be left out in the cold.
On the plaintiff side of the Democracy Forward case you have Andrew Floyd, an ex-Assistant US Attorney, and Jonathan Caravello, a CSU professor who was let off the hook after a 2025 protest. Common Cause, New Haven, and the National Abortion Federation are in there too, with warnings that the whole set-up could be an incentive for violence.
Eligibility flashpoints, including January 6 cases
Things got heated at a congressional hearing when Acting AG Todd Blanche wouldn’t put a lid on the idea of paying off some of the 6 January 2021 convictions for police assault. Two of the officers have since filed to put a stop to it.
All this is happening while Trump has been busy with clemency, wiping out hundreds of 6 January cases and the rest of them. Back in the saddle, he put conservative Ed Martin in as interim US Attorney for D.C., and Martin has been thinning the ranks of the prosecutors on the riot cases.
Politics, party tensions, and next steps
The fund has put a strain on the GOP. You can sense some unease among senators, not least after Trump put his weight behind Ken Paxton in Texas rather than John Cornyn. ‘There’s always a consequence with taking on United States senators… it can get a bit more complicated,’ says Thune.
We’ll see what the court has to say on 12 June. The arguments will be over the fund’s standing and who is in, with the plaintiffs trying to put a permanent stop to it and the administration making its case for compensating the aggrieved.
Here is what to look for before 12 June:
– If the court lets the restraining order stand
– Whether we see the five-member commission form up
– Some straight talk on 6 January defendants
– Where the Democracy Forward suits are heading
– Any new moves from Congress to keep tabs on it
For the taxpayer and the one with a claim, the end result will put a new spin on who is on the hook for past prosecutions. For the White House, it’s an early test of whether they can reframe some of these high-profile matters as the kind of lawfare that deserves a payout from the feds.
