Politics

The $1.8 Billion Fund to Pay Jan. 6 Defendants Is Dead

By Mike Harper · June 2, 2026

Seven days ago, Jan. 6 rioters, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and One America News were all lining up to apply for money from a $1.8 billion Department of Justice fund that Trump’s administration had quietly created to compensate people it said had been victimized by “government weaponization and lawfare.” The fund is now dead.

The Trump administration announced Monday it is abandoning the Anti-Weaponization Fund after a federal judge issued a temporary block on the program and a bipartisan coalition of senators — including four Republicans — threatened to kill the immigration enforcement bill the fund had been attached to. An administration official, asked to characterize the fund’s status, said: “How dead it is is what’s being worked on.” Speaker Mike Johnson called the fund “counterproductive.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said it needed to come out of the legislation entirely before he could move forward.

The sequence that ended the fund in less than two weeks is a case study in how quickly a political project can collapse when its legal and legislative foundations are simultaneously challenged.

The fund was created by an executive order and a companion DOJ-IRS settlement that, legal observers noted, appeared to contain a one-page addendum banning future investigations of the Trump family, the Trump Organization, and affiliated entities for any conduct before May 19, 2026. The settlement was challenged in court by 35 former federal judges who described it as “a fraud on the court.” Federal District Judge Dabney Friedrich issued a temporary injunction, blocking the fund’s operation while the legal challenge proceeds.

In the Senate, the fund had been attached to a $72 billion immigration enforcement reconciliation bill that Republican leaders were pushing as one of the signature legislative achievements of Trump’s second term. Four Republican senators — Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and Rand Paul — told leadership privately that they could not vote for the immigration bill as long as the DOJ fund was in it. That was four votes — exactly enough to sink the legislation, given that Republicans hold 53 seats and cannot afford more than three defections.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified before the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday, where he acknowledged the administration was stepping back from the fund.

With the fund cleared, Senate Republican leadership immediately moved to advance the $72 billion immigration enforcement bill, targeting a vote-a-rama as soon as Wednesday and a floor vote Thursday. The legislation funds expanded detention capacity, additional border personnel, and enforcement operations across immigration agencies — priorities that all 53 Republican senators support even if they could not agree on the fund that had been riding alongside it.

The Jan. 6 defendants, the election deniers, Mike Lindell, and OAN’s lawyers are no longer in line for government money. The line that formed last week disbanded this week.