OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:43 PM – Wednesday, May 20, 2026
A now-bipartisan coalition is forming on Capitol Hill to dismantle a newly created $1.776 billion Justice Department compensation fund, after a House Republican joined Democrats in vowing to block the money.
Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), a former FBI agent, asserted legislative pushback against the Trump administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” telling reporters, “We’re gonna try to kill it,” prompting other Republicans to question his loyalty to his party.
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Fitzpatrick stated that “concerned” lawmakers are actively preparing a multi-pronged counteroffensive, beginning with a formal letter of inquiry to the attorney general while simultaneously drafting restrictive legislative options to cut off the money.
The nearly $1.8 billion fund was established by the Justice Department as part of a sweeping settlement to end a $10 billion lawsuit Donald Trump filed against the Internal Revenue Service. The original lawsuit accused the IRS of failing to protect Trump’s private tax information, as his returns were leaked to the media during his first term in office.
Under the terms of the newly minted agreement, the federal government dropped its outstanding tax claims against Trump and halted all active IRS investigations into his family and business entities.
In lieu of a direct payout to the president, the administration utilized the government’s Judgment Fund — a continuously replenished taxpayer pool reserved for court settlements — to seed a compensation board tasked with paying out individuals who believe they were politically targeted or abused by the federal justice system.
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, introduced the “No Taxpayer-Funded Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2026” to explicitly prohibit federal agencies from transferring any money into the account.
Additionally, Raskin and other Democrat critics claim that because the U.S. Constitution vests the absolute power of the purse in the legislative branch, the executive branch “cannot legally manufacture a multi-billion-dollar compensation program without an explicit appropriation from Congress.”
While Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the structure before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee — highlighting that a five-member commission would carefully review claims of federal lawfare and that similar out-of-court fund structures had been used in past Democrat administrations — left-wing opponents still argue that the money will be weaponized as a political tool.
As Congress prepares for a legislative showdown over the appropriations, the battle has simultaneously spilled over into the federal judiciary.
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