Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday told The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies said the Department of Justice (DOJ) has finally abandoned the $1.776 billion “anti-gun fund” created as part of a May 18 agreement between President Donald Trump and the Internal Revenue Service, even as two federal courts continue to independently review the deal’s constitutional basis. “We’re not making any progress with the fund, period,” Blanche said. He declined to put this commitment in writing.
The settlement resolved a $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS and Treasury Department over former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn’s disclosure of his tax returns. A one-page addendum The statement, signed by Blanche on May 19 and implicitly hyperlinked in a DOJ press release, declared that the government was “forever barred and barred” from pursuing claims related to the plaintiffs’ tax returns and barred prosecution for any conduct it described as “legal conduct and/or use of arms,” without defining either term. Blanche confirmed on Tuesday that the addendum remains in effect. Rep. Rosa DeLauro said Blanche “gave the president’s family a tax exemption of approximately $100 million.” Blanche denied that.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Floyd, who led the Capitol Siege Section task force that prosecuted the January 6 defendants Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, arguing that the Fund violated the First Amendment, the Appropriations Clause, and the Equal Protection Guarantee and that its eligibility criteria, limited to claims of targeted actions by “Democratic” governments, structurally barred plaintiffs.
On May 29, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema made the announcement blocked preventing the DOJ from taking “any further action related to the establishment or operation” of the fund before a June 12 hearing to “ensure that no funds are irrevocably disbursed.” Separately, two Capitol officials, Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, filed a lawsuit Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the fund would “pay the nearly 1,600 individuals charged with the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021” and endanger their lives.
In the court where the original IRS lawsuit was filed, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams had given the parties until May 20 to decide whether Trump’s lawsuit was justified because he controlled both sides of the dispute. Trump’s lawyers filed a lawsuit Notice of Voluntary Termination on May 18, two days earlier, with no mention of an agreement. The DOJ announced the fund on the same day.
On May 27, a group of 35 retired federal judges filed a petition Movement Under Rule 60 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, he ordered Williams to reopen the case, arguing that the settlement “raises profound questions about the parties’ candor with the court.” The group included former Fourth Circuit Judge J. Michael Luttig, a George H. W. Bush appointee, and former U.S. District Judges Nancy Gertner and Shira Scheindlin. “The unprecedented fraudulent scheme here more than justifies reversal of the dismissal,” the filing states. Williams ordered Trump’s lawyers will respond by June 12, writing that “the court has the authority to investigate serious misconduct.”
Justices Gertner and Luttig said Tuesday that even if the fund were fully dissolved, it “in no way addresses the concerns raised by Judge Williams” and urged the court to “continue its investigation.” As JURIST’s editorial director noted, the scope of the review ban, which covers all executive agencies indefinitely on all matters classified as “lawfare” or “weapons,” goes beyond what was claimed in a previous presidential settlement. Hearings in both cases are scheduled for June 12.
