“The issues that underlie this case are still alive and kicking, in my view.” With that, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema declined on Friday to accept the Justice Department’s argument that a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” had become pointless. The hearing took place in Alexandria, Virginia.
She did not rule from the bench on the government’s request to dismiss the case. She did make clear she was unconvinced that the fund’s death, as the administration describes it, ends the dispute. The order she issued in June, which blocks the fund until further notice from the court, remains in place.
Dead on paper, alive in the president’s remarks
The fund was built into the settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. Critics said it would pay Trump allies, and the prospect that people who attacked police at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 might qualify drew bipartisan fury. The backlash threatened Todd Blanche’s Senate confirmation as attorney general. On August 2 he signed a formal order terminating the fund, after weeks of negotiation with two Republican senators who wanted the promise in writing.
“The case is moot,” Justice Department attorney Andrew Block told the court. “The mootness has been addressed at every stage.” Brinkema pointed to the other side of the ledger. Trump kept voicing support for the fund while Blanche called it dead. “They contradict themselves all the time,” the judge said, adding that “too much talk from members of the administration” had undercut the department’s position.
Government lawyers argue that the plaintiffs have no basis to challenge something that “has never existed and will not exist.” In their filing they wrote, “The time has come to stop this inquisition.”
The functional equivalent question
Brinkema accepted that “that entity is gone.” Her worry, as Fox News reported, was whether something similar exists elsewhere, and she pointed to the department’s Judgment Fund, the permanent Treasury account that pays court judgments and settlements. She called it “a less transparent structure”. She cited payouts to defendants convicted under the FACE Act, among them Paul Vaughn of Tennessee, who received a pardon and what he described to Fox as a seven-figure payment. The judge raised the idea of a neutral overseer, someone other than the department, for any such fund.
Pooja Boisture, an attorney for Democracy Forward, told the court the administration would most likely proceed “either in its current iteration or a new one” if the block were lifted. The group sued in May. Other plaintiffs include Common Cause, the city of New Haven, Connecticut, the National Abortion Federation, a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest. Their lawyers called the fund an “unprecedented, unlawful, and corrupt attempt” to manipulate the legal process.
Brinkema ended the hearing by telling both sides she would craft a new discovery order within days. The case is far from over.
Sources
- Judge isn't swayed by government's claims that plans for an 'anti-weaponization fund' are dead – MyNorthwest.com
- Federal judge keeps block on Trump's anti-weaponization fund, rejects mootness claim – Quartz
- Judge Brinkema rejects DOJ bid to dismiss anti-weaponization case – Fox News
