Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche listens to a reporter’s question during a press conference at the Department of Justice June 11, 2026 in Washington, DC.
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A federal judge in Virginia on Friday granted a longer block against the Department of Justice implementing a “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” saying that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s verbal claim that the fund was not going forward was an insufficient guarantee.
Judge Leonie Brinkema gave Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent a week to submit written sworn declarations that the fund was not going forward, as Blanche recently testified to Congress, MS NOW reported.
Brinkema’s decision to issue a preliminary injunction against the $1.8 billion fund — which could have compensated many allies of President Donald Trump who faced criminal probes and charges — came at the request of plaintiffs who had sued to permanently block it.
The DOJ announced that the fund was being created as part of a settlement of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for the leak of his tax records by an IRS contractor.
The fund was meant to compensate people who were purportedly the victims of prosecutorial overreach by the DOJ during the Biden administration.
The fund was harshly criticized by congressional Democrats and some Republicans, particularly because of the possibility that it would be used to pay people who pleaded guilty to crimes related to the riot at the U.S Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including defendants who assaulted police officers that day.
The DOJ said it would drop the fund after backlash to it from Senate Republicans upended a plan to pass legislation to
Brinkekma, during a court hearing on Friday, repeatedly said that Blanche’s recent testimony to Congress claiming that the DOJ was not going forward with the fund was not sufficient to guarantee that was the case, MS NOW reported.
The judge noted Trump said after Blanche’s testimony that he wanted to move forward with the fund, which Brinkema said raised doubts about the DOJ’s claims.
Pooja Boistute, senior counsel at the advocacy group Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs, after the hearing said, “We’re thrilled that the court understands that there’s harm to our plantiffs that she needs to stop and there’s harm to the American people as a whole that she needs to stop.”
The plaintiffs in the case include Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor said he was fired for prosecuting cases against Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The other plaintiffs are Jonathan Caravello, a professor at California State University Channel Islands, and the city of New Haven, Conn.
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