Blanche hints Jan. 6 assailants could get anti-weaponization payouts

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Sen. Chris Van Hollen that people convicted of assaulting law enforcement could still be eligible to apply for the Trump administration’s new “anti-weaponization fund.” The fund was announced Monday, and its existence

WASHINGTON — In a hearing on Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche didn’t rule out the possibility that people convicted of assaulting law enforcement during the Jan. 6 attack could apply for payouts from the Trump administration’s newly created “anti-weaponization fund.”

Asked by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) whether anyone who assaulted law enforcement would qualify. Blanche answered with a broad assurance that sounded. to critics. like a loophole built in from the start. “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were victims of weaponization,” Blanche said.

The timing matters. The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday, positioning it as a mechanism for compensation tied to alleged government misconduct. But in the exchange with Van Hollen, the prospect of payments for Jan. 6 assailants immediately drew fire. not just from lawmakers but from the argument the fund invites—who counts as a victim and who gets treated as one.

Van Hollen called the program a “pure theft” of public funds. He said the scheme is “rewarding individuals who committed crimes,” adding: “Every American can see through this illegal, corrupt, self-dealing scheme,” Van Hollen said.

Blanche acknowledged the fund was “unusual,” but argued it was comparable to a compensation commission created under President Barack Obama to pay Native Americans who were denied loans on a discriminatory basis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1980s and ’90s.

He also defended the fund’s origin in a settlement that. in the department’s framing. stems from a dispute the Trump administration and Trump himself resolved Monday. The Justice Department said the fund came from a settlement in which Trump withdrew his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over a past leak of his personal tax information. The settlement also followed Trump’s withdrawal of administrative claims he’d filed against the Justice Department over his supposed mistreatment during criminal investigations after his first term in the White House.

Democrats challenged the parallels Blanche drew. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) mocked Blanche’s claim that the anti-weaponization fund has a precedent in the Keepseagle settlement. which was approved by a court in 2010. Coons pressed Blanche to distinguish the prior case’s eligibility criteria from what the new fund could mean for Jan. 6 defendants.

“Did that case involve a president suing his own government and then settling that case before it could be reviewed or approved by a judge?” Coons asked.

Coons then returned to the issue that animated Van Hollen’s questioning: whether anyone who assaulted police would be eligible. Once again, Blanche did not offer a clear line. “Anybody can apply,” Blanche said.

The political conflict around the fund has also taken on a practical edge. An attorney who has filed administrative claims for injury payments from the Justice Department on behalf of hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters told HuffPost he’d lobbied the department to set up a compensation fund like the anti-weaponization fund.

The clash in the hearing left a straightforward problem for lawmakers: Blanche’s position makes eligibility hinge on whether applicants say they were victims of “weaponization. ” not on whether their conduct included assaulting law enforcement. For Van Hollen. that is precisely the point—what he described as a scheme to convert alleged political grievances into compensation that could flow to people Democrats say committed crimes.

U.S. politics Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche anti-weaponization fund Jan. 6 Chris Van Hollen Chris Coons Justice Department IRS lawsuit Keepseagle settlement