The president sued his own government, settled with himself, and used taxpayer money to create a slush fund for people who attacked the Capitol.

"This is f---ing OUR money. At least I think Nixon's slush fund was donors! At least it was stand-up bribery."

— Jon Stewart, on The Problem With Jon Stewart podcast, May 2026

On Monday, May 18, the Department of Justice announced something that would have been unthinkable in any previous American administration: a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who claim they were politically targeted by the government. The name given to it was the "Anti-Weaponization Fund." The number chosen for it was a deliberate nod to 1776 and American independence. The irony was not lost on anyone except, perhaps, the people who came up with it.

The fund was announced as part of a settlement that ended Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. The lawsuit itself had been an exercise in unprecedented self-dealing: the president suing the agency he leads, over the public release of his own tax returns. Over 90 House Democrats signed an amicus brief asking the presiding judge to dismiss it, calling a potential settlement "a specter of corruption unparalleled in American history."

Trump withdrew the lawsuit. What replaced it was worse than the specter.

The fund would be drawn from the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund, which is typically used to pay legally reached court settlements and judgments. Instead, the money would go to a five-person commission handpicked by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal criminal attorney. The commissioners would review claims and distribute payouts as they saw fit. No congressional authorization was sought. No specific recipients were named in advance.

The only people in the White House who knew about the fund before it was announced were Blanche, his top aide Trent McCotter, the Office of Legal Counsel, and Trump's personal lawyer Boris Epshteyn. Senior White House aides were told days before the public announcement, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Translation: even the people closest to the president did not know he was setting up an $1.8 billion slush fund with taxpayer money.

The fund's design included one explicit safeguard: Trump himself would receive "no monetary payment or damages." Everyone else in his orbit could qualify. Including, potentially, the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and assaulted police officers. When confronted about this at a Senate hearing, Blanche refused to rule out payouts to convicted rioters. He also refused to commit to excluding Trump donors from receiving funds.

The revolt came quickly. More than two dozen Republican senators met with Blanche in what Senator Ted Cruz described as "one of the roughest meetings" he had ever witnessed. "There were fireworks at an epic level," Cruz said. The senators held Trump's $72 billion immigration enforcement bill hostage, refusing to vote it through before the Memorial Day recess.

Senator Lindsey Graham, typically one of Trump's most reliable allies in the Senate, is reported to have serious doubts about the fund. CNBC anchor Joe Kernen, a self-described MAGA supporter, told a Republican congressman on air that the fund "smells bad."

Jon Stewart put it more bluntly. On his podcast, he pointed out the distinction between Trump's fund and Richard Nixon's Watergate slush fund: Nixon's $700,000 came from private donors, including $100,000 from Howard Hughes. Trump's $1.776 billion comes from taxpayers. "Do we even have a Congress or a court?" Stewart asked.

The amount itself tells the story of how far the administration is willing to go for symbolism. $1.776 billion. A patriotic rounding that suggests whoever designed this fund believed that if you dress corruption in the colors of the flag, it becomes patriotism.

Two police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6 filed a lawsuit to block the fund. Former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Daniel Hodges argued that the fund "rewards and incentivizes unlawful behavior" and increases the danger they face by encouraging violent insurrectionists to continue their activities. The Public Integrity Project filed the suit on their behalf.

"This Fund creates enormous physical dangers for Officers Dunn and Hodges, who risked their lives on January 6, 2021, and who continue to do so by refusing to let that day be forgotten," said Brendan Ballou, founder of the Public Integrity Project.

Civil rights attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnik wrote on social media: "This is a theft far worse than Watergate. There is no other word for it. They are stealing $1.78 BILLION dollars to pay Trump's allies, despite knowing that these people are not legally entitled to any money."

Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland told The New Republic that he sees the fund as Trump and his lawyers "figuring out a way to refund the January 6 militia, presumably to get them ready for the next round of battle."

On Friday, May 29, District Judge Leonie Brinkema, appointed by Bill Clinton, issued a temporary order blocking the administration from taking any further actions to create or operate the fund. The order bars money transfers and halts consideration of claims pending a hearing on June 12.

The Justice Department responded with a statement saying it was "confident in the legality of the fund" and that "the policy preferences of judges" would not interfere with providing "restitution to victims of lawfare."

Democracy Forward, one of the organizations fighting the fund, called the ruling a victory for transparency and the rule of Law. Skye Perryman, its president and CEO, said no administration has the authority to spend public money through a political rewards program that Congress never authorized.

The hearing on June 12 will determine whether the pause extends longer. In the meantime, the fund exists in limbo: announced but not operational, promised but not distributed, defended by the White House but blocked by a judge appointed by the president's predecessor.

Nixon's slush fund was $700,000 from private donors and cost him the presidency. Trump's is $1.776 billion in taxpayer money and has already caused his own party to fracture over it. The difference between the two is not just the scale. It is that Nixon's corruption came from people who wanted something from him. Trump's comes from people who do not want anything at all except what they are owed.

The question is no longer whether this was corrupt. The question is why anyone thought calling it "anti-weaponization" would make it acceptable.