Bipartisan Senate duo urges court to maintain block on DOJ fund, calling it a "dire threat" to Constitution

Washington — A bipartisan pair of senators urged a federal court Thursday to continue blocking the Justice Department from moving forward with its $1.7 billion "anti-weaponization fund," warning that it is an "immediate and dire threat" to the constitutional order and arguing it is designed to provide payouts to people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Sens. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, and Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, raised their objections to the fund in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the court in eastern Virginia. A judge there temporarily blocked the Justice Department last week from taking any action regarding the program, including considering claims or disbursing funds, while she considers whether to grant longer-lasting relief.

In their filing, the senators said the judge should maintain her injunction and ultimately rule in favor of the plaintiffs challenging the fund, which include a former federal prosecutor who worked on Jan. 6-related cases.

"The Anti-Weaponization Fund presents an immediate and dire threat to our constitutional order and the authority of Congress," Cassidy and Booker wrote. "Indeed, among other purposes, the Fund is designed to compensate the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. The existence of the Fund strikes at the core of Congressional authority and our Constitutional order."

The senators said that the fund violates the Constitution's Spending, Appropriations and Appointments Clauses.

In their brief, they said they "respectfully urge this Court to recognize that what is at stake in this litigation is not an ordinary dispute about executive spending authority or the boundaries of the clemency power. It is a question of whether the machinery of democratic government may be turned, by design and with explicit intent, against the democratic foundations it exists to serve."

The Justice Department announced the anti-weaponization fund last month as part of a deal to settle a civil lawsuit President Trump filed against the IRS in January over the leak of his tax returns by a former government contractor. The $1.7 billion fund aims to "provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare," according to the Justice Department.

The settlement gives five people who are appointed by the attorney general the authority to distribute payouts. The Justice Department did not specify who could benefit from the fund, but shortly after it was announced, several people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack and Trump allies said they planned to apply for relief.

Republican and Democratic senators swiftly objected to the program, particularly because of concerns that people involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol assault could be awarded money. The fund threatened to derail a $70 billion package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through a process known as reconciliation. The Senate on Thursday convened to move forward with the legislation, though Democrats and some Republicans are expected to force votes aimed at limiting the fund.

Cassidy, who recently lost his primary election to an opponent backed by Mr. Trump, is among the GOP senators who have expressed issues with the anti-weaponization fund.

Amid the backlash, the Justice Department said it would stop work on the program and comply with the court's temporary decision. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche also told a House committee Tuesday that the administration is "not moving forward with the fund," but would not commit to putting it in writing. 

Still, Blanche's assurances, particularly when coupled with Mr. Trump's continued defense of the program, have done little to assuage skeptical senators. 

In their court filing, Booker and Cassidy argued the "anti-weaponization" program is an "end-run" around Congress's power of the purse and the Senate's advise and consent role in presidential appointments. They said the fund "presents a threat to our constitutional democracy" by potentially providing payments to Jan. 6 rioters, many of whom were pardoned by Mr. Trump on his first day back in the White House.

"Regardless of the Executive Branch's authority to extend clemency to those defendants, the further step of affirmatively compensating them from public funds transforms a decision not to punish into a declaration that the conduct itself was legitimate and deserving of remedy," Cassidy and Booker wrote. "The gravity of that transformation cannot be overstated."

The two senators framed the fund as part of a "scheme deliberately designed to recast insurrectionists" as victims and "legitimate prosecutions as persecution."

"To deliberately deploy public funds, in violation of the Constitution and the laws of this nation, to compensate these perpetrators is to use the machinery of democratic government to subsidize an attack on that government's most fundamental processes," the senators said.