Trump administration’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund faces legal backlash

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:06]All right, you guys can't stop asking questions about what's being called a compensation fund for some Trump allies.

[00:00:12]We're following your clicks and curiosity, and it looks like you guys want to know just how this ties into a lawsuit against the IRS and how it stacks up legally. So, let's break it down. We've got our Katherine Folders up first, then Kim Whe. Ladies, thank you all so much for joining us. Let's start with what's being dubbed an anti-weaponization fund. Our Katherine Folders joins me with what we need to know from our DC bureau. Katherine, let's start from the beginning. Why is the administration even creating this fund?

[00:00:36]>> Well, they're creating it because Trump, who sued himself, by the way, earlier this year, Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion. Now, this is being created as part of what the administration is saying is a settlement. Essentially, Trump settling with himself. They're saying that he's not getting any money in return. But by the way, the settlement terms don't preclude entities associated with him for applying. And instead of paying Trump directly directly into his bank account, they have all agreed to create what they're calling this anti-weaponization fund. It will be uh more than $1.7 billion and essentially wouldn't preclude anybody uh who attacked the capital on January 6th from applying. They are saying uh that anybody who was the the victim, if you will, of what Trump calls the weaponized Biden Justice Department will be eligible to apply and the process in which the claims are paid out, for example, won't exactly be transparent.

[00:01:32]There will be quarterly, I believe, quarterly reports that are confidential and the acting attorney general said today that maybe those will be released publicly. But still, there are a lot of questions about how this is even legal and what this will look like moving forward. Yeah, Katherine, where's this money coming from? Especially with such a loose umbrella of I guess what seems to qualify who's a part of this fund.

[00:01:51]>> Yeah, so the money is coming from what is called the the judgment fund. A judgment fund exists. It's a pot of money that is used by the US government to settle cases. That's not unusual in any way. What's unusual here is that the money is coming from that fund. taxpayer dollars will be wired into another account, if you will, um to the tune of 1.776 billion dollar, then it will come out of that account. So, the reality is that's where the money is coming from. And it really is this unprecedented use of taxpayer dollars. We've really never seen anything like this before.

[00:02:24]>> Yeah. 1.7 billion. That's definitely not pennies in the couch. Any idea how long this fund will last?

[00:02:30]>> Yeah, so it's supposed to last uh a couple years. So up until only a few months before Trump leaves office and then that money will be turned back over to the US government if of course there's any money uh left in that fund.

[00:02:43]Uh they are saying that Trump doesn't really control the funds that he doesn't oversee the money but the reality is the fund is governed by a commission. There will be five people on that commission appointed by the attorney general and Trump will have the ability to fire them whenever he pleases without cause by the way. They don't have to tell us why he's firing them. So he does have control uh over this fund. Again, it will be in effect until a few just just shortly before Trump leaves office and whatever money is left in there, if there is any money, will be given back to the government.

[00:03:14]>> Huh, Katherine, thank you. This is only raising more questions for me. So, let's bring in Kim Why. She's a lawyer who also teaches constitutional law and she's here to get into the legality and precedent of this fund because I don't think I've ever heard of something like this. Kim, people are searching. They want to know if the Trump administration's anti-weaponization fund is actually legal.

[00:03:32]>> I don't see any legal basis for it. I mean, as Katherine indicated, it's coming maybe from some pot of money, but there has to be some legal authorization for it. There was a lawsuit that was filed by Trump and his sons and the Trump organization over a contractor that supposedly leaked information uh from the IRS years ago. and then that lawsuit was actually dismissed. So that lawsuit's no longer pending. So to call this a settlement is actually kind of not entirely accurate because it really has no bearing ostensibly on this on the lawsuit that was filed with a very bizarre conflict of interest. So at the end of the day really what it is is Trump taking it looks like a hundred 1.8 20 billion dollars and just deciding to hand it out to whomever he wants confidentially. There's not a a rule or a law or standards that justify that use of federal taxpayer dollars, which under the Constitution under Article One is supposed to come from Congress. That's the spending clause. Congress has the power of the purse and the president is supposed to be constrained in his ability to spend taxpayer dollars because if all that power goes within the presidency, we don't have a dem democracy anymore. We don't have checks and balances. We have something that looks more like a dictatorship where there's one person that's kind of in charge of everything. And that's where we're moving as a country, particularly after yesterday. Kim, in all your years studying constitutional law, have you ever seen anything similar like this under any other president?

[00:05:09]>> No. This is beyond unprecedented. It's really a stunning moment. It's hard to put into words how extraordinary this is because again, our entire system, checks and balances, separation of powers, no more kings. The whole idea is that nobody in power has unaccountable authority. It's transparent. You can sue if there's a problem under this supposed agreement. There's no judicial review.

[00:05:36]There's no appeals. There's even a statement in an accompanying order by uh acting de Attorney General Todd Blanch that there's no liability to the government for abuse of the funds. Um there's no standards for who gets the funds. It's really I think members of Congress, some of them are calling it a slush fund. What does that mean? It basically means taking taxpayer dollars and doing whatever you want with it.

[00:06:01]Some members of Congress have called this theft. And what is a theft? A theft is taking money that you don't have any legal authorization for with the intention of using it for however you want. So I don't think that's an unfair characterization arguably.

[00:06:15]>> Yeah. Kim, you mentioned checks and balances. Can Congress or a federal job federal judge do anything to stop this?

[00:06:22]>> You know, Congress has the power of oversight. um has the power of impeachment. Some might call this really outside the boundaries of what the president's authorized to do for high crimes and misdemeanors. We're not seeing that um in theory. The judge who oversaw this lawsuit had real questions about it. She's out of the loop because they dismissed it. So, you know, unless a future president were to decide, listen, we need to go back and look over what happened and see if there were any crimes committed, any laws violated, it's hard to see in this moment who would be able to sue and get some oversight. It really has to be with Congress and that's going to require the American people to demand accountability and demand the Congress to actually do its job.

[00:07:04]>> It's certainly an eyebrow raising development to say the least. Kim, thank you so