Virginia federal judge temporarily blocks Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘weaponization’ fund

May 29 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on May 29 temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from setting up a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of what Trump has called government “weaponization.”

The order by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia blocks the Trump administration from “taking any further action” to set up or operate the fund while the judge hears additional legal arguments.

The Justice Department announced the creation of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” last week as part of an agreement to settle Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax records.

It set up a $1.776 billion fund overseen by a five-member commission to dole out payments to those who they show they were victims of “lawfare” and “weaponization,” terms Trump and his allies have used to describe investigations and criminal cases against them.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a group who claimed to be targeted “by the Trump-Vance administration as ideological or political opponents” and alleged they would be ineligible for payouts from the fund.

The fund spurred a backlash, even from some lawmakers in Trump’s Republican Party, who expressed anger that some people who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, would receive taxpayer-funded payouts.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Jonathan Stempel; editing by Michelle Nichols)