Berliner Tageblatt - Police defenders of US Capitol sue to stop Trump 'slush fund'

"In the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century, President Donald J. Trump has created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name," the officers said in their suit filed in federal court in Washington.

"Although Trump and his cronies have been secretive about the Fund's ends, reporting leaves no doubt that it will be used, among other purposes, to pay the nearly 1,600 people charged with attacking the Capitol," they said.

Trump issued a mass pardon to the January 6 defendants on his first day in office last year.

The two officers who filed the suit -- Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges -- were among those who defended the Capitol from the pro-Trump mob that was seeking to block congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election victory.

The Justice Department announced the creation of the "Anti-Weaponization Fund" on Monday as part of a settlement in which Trump dropped a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a years-old leak of his tax returns.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the fund was needed to "compensate for what the Democrats and what Biden and what (former Biden attorney general Merrick) Garland did for four years."

Blanche would not rule out that Trump supporters who were convicted of attacking police during the assault on the Capitol would be eligible for payouts.

"Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were a victim of weaponization," said Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney and who will appoint the five commissioners to oversee the fund.

- 'Corrupt sham' -

Trump, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, also defended the fund.

"People were destroyed, they went to jail, their families were ruined, they committed suicide," he said. "The Biden administration was horrible... We're reimbursing those people for their legal fees and for their costs."

The lawsuit, which names Trump, Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as defendants, said the "Anti-Weaponization Fund" is "illegal."

"No statute authorizes its creation, the settlement on which it is premised is a corrupt sham, and its design violates the Constitution and federal law," it says.

After leaving the White House in 2021, Trump was charged by special counsel Jack Smith with attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden and allegedly mishandling classified documents.

Both cases were dropped after the Republican won the 2024 presidential election.

Trump, his two eldest sons Eric and Donald Jr. and the Trump Organization filed a lawsuit against the IRS in January seeking $10 billion in damages over the tax returns leak.

A former IRS contractor pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking the tax returns of Trump and other wealthy Americans to the media and received a five-year prison sentence.

L.Janezki--BTB