Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks at a press conference at the Department of Justice on May 4, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch Getty Images
A judge on Thursday said a lawsuit challenging the Justice Department’s creation of a $1.8 billion “anti-weapon” fund will continue, citing the DOJ’s refusal to confirm to him in writing that the fund is dead, as the department has said verbally.
Judge Leonie Brinkema, in an order from the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, said that if the DOJ had given her “a brief, written declaration under penalty of perjury” that the fund was indeed dead, that would have been enough to dismiss the case as a crime.
Brinkema said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s refusal to rescind his May 18 memo that established the creation of the fund, as well as his and President Donald Trump’s interest in compensating the alleged victims of the DOJ, “all support the conclusion” that the case should not be dismissed.
Blanche created the fund as part of Trump’s $10 billion settlement of a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax records. The fund, whose total payout could be $1.776 billion – in recognition of the year the Declaration of Independence was signed – was designed to provide relief to people who are said to be “afflicted by arms and the law.”
Critics have called it a “money slush fund” that will pay off Trump’s allies, including potentially hundreds of people convicted of crimes related to their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, at the US Capitol.
Blanche testified before a House committee on June 2 that the fund “is not moving forward,” after sharp criticism from Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
DOJ lawyers pointed to that statement when arguing with Brinkema and another federal judge that it was enough to drop the charges against the fund.
In a statement filed in court this week, the DOJ said written declarations that the fund was dead were “unnecessary,” and that Brinkema’s request that senior Trump administration officials document Blanche’s pledge “involves significant power concerns.”
But Brinkema, in his order Thursday, wrote, “That the defendants have refused to provide a true level of credibility in their actions regarding the Fund that is not moving forward is especially concerning because of the President’s continued support for the Fund and Acting Attorney General Blanche’s acknowledgment that the Fund remains ‘important.’ “
“Although the Acting Attorney General Blanche repeated many times during her testimony
that the Fund is not continuing, when we were asked if he would issue a new memo in writing canceling that memo of May 18, he replied, ‘I am not committed to writing anything. And I said it over and over,’” Brinkema noted.
