Trump Admin Has Other Ways To Compensate Victims of “Weaponization” after Fund Is Disbanded

The Trump administration will continue to find ways to compensate victims of weaponized justice after the apparent death of President Trump’s $1.8 billion “weaponization fund.”

This week, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the fund would “not be moving forward.”

In a post on X, Sen. Lindsay graham said, “We have a legal system already in place for people to make claims against the government. That does not need to be reinvented.”

He encouraged would-be-claimants to use the Federal Torts Claim Act (FTCA).

The Hill reports that January 6^th defendants are now looking to use the FTCA to pursue compensation from the federal government.

The Hill explains, “Under the FTCA, would-be claimants have two years after the date of an incident to file a claim. If the federal government denies it or doesn’t act within six months, they can bring the case in court. If the government quickly moves to settle, the payouts could be agreed to without any judicial scrutiny.”

Michael Caputo, a former spokesman for Health and Human Services during the first Trump administration, was one of the first people to apply for compensation from the anti-weaponization fund, which was established as part of a settlement between the Department of Justice and the President Trump, his family and the Trump Organization.

“The anti-weaponization fund was a pleasant surprise, but the Republicans in the Senate — who decided that my family did not deserve restitution—will not stop me,” Caputo told The Hill. He said he was now considering an FTCA claim and called the ending of the anti-weaponization fund “a brief distraction.”

“It’s not just a beginning for me, it’s a beginning for everybody whose life was destroyed by political weaponization.”

Although the Senate failed to block the anti-weaponization fund last Thursday, AG Blanche said the fund was over, “period.” He has, however, failed to put that commitment in writing or to withdraw the memo that created the fund.

President Trump last week also cast doubt on whether the fund was really dead, saying he would have his lawyers consider the matter.

Democrat lawmakers are already looking at ways to prevent January 6^th defendants from using the FTCA and the so-called Judgment Fund to claim compensation.

Senator Richard Blumenthal said, “We ought to prohibit convicted criminals, particularly Jan. 6 rioters, from collecting through the Judgment Fund, because this Justice Department is so corrupt, it might somehow settle sham lawsuits, so there need to be stricter guardrails for the Judgment Fund.”

Blumenthal described the anti-weaponization fund as “a slush fund that shouldn’t exist at all.”