WASHINGTON -- A U.S. judge has said a lawsuit filed against a US$1.8 billion compensation fund for President Donald Trump’s political allies can go ahead after administration officials declined to certify that the plan was dead.
District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the Trump administration earlier this month to confirm in a sworn statement that it has abandoned the program denounced by critics as a “slush fund” for Trump loyalists.
Brinkema, in an order released on Thursday, said she had not received the requested assurances from the administration, and the suit challenging the fund can move ahead.
“Defendants were offered the opportunity to end this litigation by filing written declarations under the penalty of perjury... that the Fund will not proceed in any manner or under any other name,” the judge said. “Defendants have filed a Notice declining to provide such assurances.”
In a filing with the judge, the administration pointed to remarks by Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, at a congressional hearing in which he told lawmakers the “anti-weaponization” fund was “not moving forward.”
Brinkema said it was not enough to declare the case moot.
The judge has already blocked the fund designed to compensate people who claim to have been treated unfairly by the US government.
The planned fund had drawn criticism from Democrats, legal experts and even some members of the president’s own Republican Party.
The Trump administration said the fund was intended to compensate people who suffered from government “weaponization” and “lawfare” -- Trump’s terms for what he says was politically motivated targeting of conservatives and his supporters.
But opponents said the fund had no clear legal basis, little public oversight and could be used to reward loyalists, including defendants convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
Trump, on his first day back in office last year, granted clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted over the Capitol assault, when his supporters attacked Congress in an effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The fund was created by the Justice Department as part of an extraordinary settlement of Trump’s civil lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leak of his tax returns by a former government contractor.
An addendum to the settlement bars the IRS from pursuing Trump, his family or companies for back tax claims, and Blanche -- Trump’s former personal attorney -- has said that remains in place.
Trump is the first US president in recent times to decline to publicly release his tax returns. He has claimed repeatedly that his returns are being audited by the IRS.
