The Department of Justice is permanently abandoning its purported anti-weaponization fund.
“The reasons for the fund remain as important as they were before, but we are not moving forward with the fund,” Blanche said on June 4.
The fund aimed to compensate victims of lawfare and political persecution and could have potentially paid Jan. 6, 2021, suspects.
When asked to sign reversal paperwork by Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), promising that the anti-weaponization fund would not be resurrected in the future, Blanche said his word on the matter is sufficient.
Meng represents New York's 6th Congressional District that spans Queens.
“There is no commission set up and no claimants, there were no claims made yet, so yes, we are not moving forward,” Blanche told the committee. “There is nothing to reverse. I think there will be a transcript of what I say here, so I think that will be in writing."
A coalition of legal advocacy groups, led by Democracy Forward, filed a lawsuit challenging the use of the judgment fund for anti-weaponization, which would have been a $1.776 billion perpetual appropriation.
“There is a date in the case in June but we are not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche reiterated. “The reasons for the fund … is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them.”
Last week, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams reopened Trump’s IRS lawsuit after 35 former federal judges asked for an investigation into the anti-weaponization fund.
"The non-party movants advance grievous allegations that Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed this litigation solely to avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit that “was collusive from the start” and was only filed to provide the imprimatur of legality for an unlawful settlement," Williams wrote.
Since the federal case was reopened, Williams has asked for responses from Trump and his co-plaintiffs on or before June 12 that address charges of collusion, the assertion that the dismissal was premised on deception and whether the case should be reopened because of alleged fraud on the court.