DOJ’s $1.776 – Michael Fanone, the former D.C. Metropolitan Police officer attacked during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, condemned the Justice Department’s proposed $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” calling it a “slush fund” and “the greatest betrayal of them all.”
Michael Fanone remembers the moment the Capitol came under assault on Jan. 6, 2021—when a mob of Donald Trump supporters attacked him and left him fighting to survive. On Monday. he returned to that wound with a fresh target: the Justice Department’s latest plan to create a $1.7 billion “anti-weaponization fund” that could pay for claims connected to people charged over the Capitol attack.
“It’s rubbing salt in the wound to all of the officers that fought to defend the Capitol,” Fanone said in an appearance on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”
Fanone’s anger is sharpened by what he sees as a pattern of shifting accountability. He argued that “day one” pardons of about 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters were “the nail in the coffin of accountability” for the assault. Then came the new move, which he said is “adding insult to injury.”
In a post on his Substack page. Fanone described the fund—set to the tune of $1.776 billion. a reference to the year of the nation’s founding—as a “slush fund.” He linked the figure to a reported bargain: the money was formed in exchange for Trump dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the DOJ. To Fanone, the point wasn’t just the size, but the symbolism and who it appears to benefit.
The Justice Department says the fund is intended to pay those who have “suffered weaponization and lawfare.” That framing has unsettled Democrats, who have expressed concern that the pool could be used to pay the president’s political allies.
Fanone’s critique went further on the symbolism. “It’s a flex, a big fuck you to America, and it’s being paid for with your tax dollars,” he wrote, singling out the administration’s choice of the $1.776 billion figure.
He later expanded the accusation. writing: “A nearly 2 billion dollar slush fund wrapped in an American symbol to be placed like a wreath at Arlington Cemetery to the violent insurrectionists who tried to overthrow democracy over a lie. In my book. this is the greatest betrayal of them all.” He added. “It absolutely f**king disgusts me to my core.”.
The push around the fund also lands amid a broader legal and political fight involving Trump and the Justice Department. Earlier this year. the president sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in his capacity as a private citizen over a leak of his tax information in 2020. He is also dropping separate administrative claims for damages.
On Monday, when asked by reporters about the fund, Trump said he knew “very little about it.”
Fanone dismissed that posture. In his CNN appearance. he accused Trump of offering a “buyout” to “violent criminals for committing violent crimes on his behalf.” Fanone said it was part of what he described as Trump’s “normalization of political violence. ” adding. “It’s a buyout. ” and that “no one has done more to normalize political violence in this country than Donald Trump himself.”.
Taken together. the reactions underscore the central fault line in the administration’s approach: how to treat people charged in the Capitol riot. and whether compensation schemes framed as justice-for-critics are seen by those who defended the Capitol as a reward for violence—paid for with public money and wrapped in national symbolism.
Michael Fanone D.C. Metropolitan Police Jan. 6 anti-weaponization fund Justice Department slush fund Donald Trump pardons accountability Arlington Cemetery IRS Treasury tax leak