Trump administration says it will comply with court order to pause $1.8 billion compensation fund

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Monday it will comply with a court ruling temporarily blocking a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate allies of President Donald Trump, effectively agreeing to pause the plan for at least two weeks after setbacks in the courts and a fierce backlash from Republicans who objected to potential payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The announcement from the Justice Department came in response to a Friday court ruling by a federal judge in Virginia who ordered plans for the fund halted pending additional arguments later this month. The department said in a statement that it “disagrees strongly” with the ruling but would abide by it.

The Trump administration had defended the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” established to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, as an appropriate corrective measure to make up for what officials insist was weaponized law enforcement during the Biden administration.

Though some Trump supporters, including participants in the Capitol riot, celebrated the announcement of the fund, the reaction among Republicans in Congress has been decidedly more hostile. Senators pressed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche over the fund at a closed-door gathering last month that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas called one of “the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.”

The fund’s future was called into question Friday by a pair of court rulings.

One judge in Virginia temporarily halted its formation and scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend her order barring the government from moving forward with the fund while pending litigation challenges it.

“This Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise,” the Justice Department said in a statement in which it asserted its disagreement with the ruling. “The Department will abide by the Court’s ruling.”

Separately, the federal judge in Florida overseeing Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS ordered Trump’s attorneys to respond to “grievous allegations” by settlement critics that the president abandoned his claims to avoid the court’s scrutiny of an illegal deal. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams gave them until June 12 to respond in writing to allegations of collusion and whether the case should be reopened because the court was the “victim of a fraud.”