Trump “weaponization” – Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche declared Trump’s proposed $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” kaput after Republicans objected. But Trump’s broader insistence that past administrations “weaponized” government has not gone away—alongside a longstandin
Donald Trump’s pitch that past administrations “weaponized” government against him may be the latest thing he’s trying to sell. But the money behind his version of that story is running out of air.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former lawyer, declared the proposed “Anti-Weaponization Fund” dead. The plan had been for a slush fund of $1.776 billion—money Trump’s lieutenants could dole out to political allies. including. possibly. those associated with the violent January 6 effort.
Trump continued to support the idea even as the backlash mounted. The fund, however, appeared “kaput,” with enough room for one unanswered question to linger: it could still be revived in some form.
For many Republicans, the collapse was the first time their concern landed on the most concrete fact of all: nearly $2 billion taken from American taxpayers and funneled toward Trump’s political circle.
Yet the bigger fight Trump is still waging goes well beyond the fund itself. His narrative is that he is the target of “lawfare”—politically motivated investigations and prosecutions—rather than the subject of legitimate cases brought because of alleged wrongdoing. The argument, in Trump’s telling, is that the federal government has repeatedly struck at him and his right-wing allies.
On this point, official findings cited in the record repeatedly undercut the “weaponization” story—beginning with the Russia investigation. Trump has claimed for years that the probe was a fraud cooked up by the “Deep State. ” the Democrats. and the media. But multiple official reviews concluded the enterprise was legitimate and not a political hit job.
Those reviews included a Justice Department inspector general report issued in 2019. a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee released in 2020 when then-Sen. Marco Rubio chaired the committee. and a 2023 final report produced by special counsel John Durham. appointed in 2019 by then–Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the investigation.
Each review concluded the inquiry was neither a hoax nor a witch hunt. They did, however, criticize elements of the Russia investigation—most notably the FBI’s improper surveillance of Carter Page, a former adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report reaffirmed the intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow covertly attacked the 2016 election. in part to help Trump win the White House. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report, mentioned alongside the same assessment, pointed in the same direction.
There was, in this telling, no “weaponization” on that front. The Russia investigation produced solid indictments of several Trump aides, including Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, George Papdopoulos, and Roger Stone. Each of them either pleaded guilty or was convicted by a jury. Then came the political turn: Trump pardoned all four at the end of his first term.
Separately, Trump’s Justice Department in April handed Flynn $1.25 million to settle an iffy lawsuit he filed alleging he had been maliciously prosecuted. The account here also notes that the Justice Department can be expected to be sympathetic to similar claims from other Trump devotees.
Trump’s other major grievances about “weaponization” focus on two federal efforts led by special counsel Jack Smith: the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and the case involving alleged mishandling of top-secret documents after he left the White House.
Both inquiries are described as having been fully justified. During the House January 6 committee’s investigation. multiple Republican witnesses testified that Trump took actions that were possibly criminal to try to retain power. And a bipartisan majority of the Senate voted to convict him on impeachment charges tied to his incitement of the January 6 riot; the piece emphasizes that it was not the supermajority required for conviction.
In those cases, the account points out, a jury or judge found Trump guilty, described as a sign the cases had merit.
The records case had its own procedural story. The National Archives and the Justice Department repeatedly tried to retrieve from Trump the sensitive records he held when he departed 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue throughout 2021 and the first half of 2022. The piece states that if Trump had returned the records, there would have been no prosecution.
Some material was returned. and one of Trump’s attorneys certified that all documents had been sent back—but the certification is described here as false. Then an FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago found 25 boxes containing documents of the highest classification. That criminal case, the piece argues, was not a witch hunt.
Neither the stolen papers case nor the 2020 election case went to trial because Smith closed them after Trump won the 2024 election. citing a Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted on federal charges. The piece adds that Mueller did not file obstruction of justice charges against Trump during the Russia investigation for the same reason.
Trump’s complaint also extends into New York. He argues he was unfairly investigated for tax fraud and for falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels. who claimed to have had an extramarital tryst with Trump. In the account here, a jury or judge found Trump guilty in each of those cases.
The “weaponization” theme is not limited to Trump’s personal legal battles in the account. The MAGA crowd, it says, argues the federal government in the Biden years was weaponized against right-wingers. Their claims include that the FBI targeted conservative Christians and school-board activists.
A leaked internal memo from the FBI’s Richmond. Virginia. field office. described as leaked in 2023. cited “radical-traditionalist Catholic” ideology as a possible pathway for domestic extremist violence. GOP officials and conservatives reacted with outrage. The memo was rescinded. and the account says there was no evidence it resulted in any investigations or prosecutions. characterizing it as essentially the work of one junior analyst in a field office.
The piece also addresses another controversy: complaints from some parents protesting at school board meetings that they were being threatened. After those complaints. the Biden Justice Department issued a memo directing US attorney and FBI agents to discuss this matter with local officials. The memo, as described here, compared concerned parents often described as religious conservatives to terrorists—prompting right-wing groups to howl.
But the account says that too did not lead to sweeping investigations of conservatives.
Then there is January 6, the part of the story Trump and his allies have returned to repeatedly. The piece says MAGA luminaries—and Trump himself—have long championed the convicted rioters as victims of unfair and overreaching criminal investigations. It notes that a White House website paid for with tax dollars makes that argument.
It also describes the worry that the Trump slush fund would dole out millions to the violent insurrectionists, thus endorsing and encouraging political violence.
For Trump and his cult, the claims have continued to harden: that they are victimized by law enforcement, that “weaponization” is what’s happening to them.
This account frames that as gaslighting—calling the prosecution of the January 6 marauders “weaponization” one of the biggest acts of gaslighting a White House has tried to pull off. The reasoning offered is direct: the investigations and prosecutions Trump “bitches about” were appropriate government activity.
The piece argues that Trump’s political program has been accompanied by a disinformation campaign that went largely unchallenged. It then points to Trump’s own pattern of actions in office. saying he has ordered up criminal investigations involving former FBI Director James Comey. New York state Attorney General Letitia James. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). former CIA Director John Brennan. and others. and it mentions assaults launched on major law firms and universities.
With the proposed $1.8 billion pot described as preposterous to give to supporters who ran afoul of the law, the argument returns to the central contradiction at the heart of Trump’s message: the piece insists the assertion of pervasive government weaponization is just as false.
Even with the fund appearing dead for now, it says Trump continues to talk about it—adding that he said, “I love it. I think it’s so important.” Whatever happens next, it argues, Trump and his cult will persist in insisting that they have been victimized by law enforcement.
And it concludes that, for many, the attempt to rebrand prosecutions as “weaponization” is less a serious constitutional dispute than a cover story—one that will need resistance as long as the mythology keeps trying to replace accountability.
Trump weaponization Anti-Weaponization Fund Todd Blanche DOJ Russia investigation John Durham Senate Intelligence Committee FBI January 6 Jack Smith Mar-a-Lago National Archives Stormy Daniels