Two police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, sued the Trump administration in federal court in Washington this week, seeking to dismantle a newly created $1.776 billion compensation fund they call a "corrupt sham" designed to reward the very people who attacked them.
Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police officer Daniel Hodges filed the complaint days after the Justice Department announced creation of the so-called "Anti-Weaponization Fund" as part of a settlement resolving President Donald Trump's lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax records, Newsmax reported.
The lawsuit names President Trump, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Treasury Secretary Todd Bessent, the New York Post reported. It asks the court to dissolve the fund entirely, arguing it was created without congressional authorization, violates the Constitution, and could funnel taxpayer dollars to people convicted of assaulting law enforcement.
The Anti-Weaponization Fund emerged from a settlement that ended Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. That suit stemmed from the conduct of former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, who was sentenced to prison in 2024 after admitting he leaked Trump's tax information to news organizations.
Under the settlement terms, the Justice Department would establish a five-member commission appointed by Attorney General Blanche to review claims from individuals who say they were unfairly targeted by the federal government. Trump described those potential claimants as victims of government "weaponization and lawfare." The DOJ said Trump and his family will not receive direct payments from the fund.
The money would come from the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund, a permanent account traditionally used to pay legal settlements against the federal government. That detail sits at the center of the legal fight. Dunn and Hodges argue the DOJ has no authority to redirect that money into a new compensation program without an act of Congress.
The complaint invokes Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which bars the United States from paying debts "incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States." The officers contend that compensating people connected to the January 6 breach falls squarely within that prohibition.
Attorneys for the officers at the Public Integrity Project wrote in the filing:
"Dunn and Hodges did not back down on January 6. Instead, they held the line to defend democracy and the rule of law. They bring this case to do so once again."
The lawsuit goes further, calling the fund "the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century" and alleging that Trump "created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name," Breitbart reported, citing the complaint's language.
That language is plainly political. But the underlying legal questions, whether the executive branch can create a billion-dollar fund outside the appropriations process, and whether the 14th Amendment applies, will be decided by the court, not by the complaint's rhetoric.
The timing of the lawsuit tracks closely with Attorney General Blanche's testimony before senators on Tuesday. Under questioning from lawmakers, Blanche declined to rule out payments to people convicted of violent crimes connected to January 6.
Blanche told senators:
"I will definitely encourage the commissioners to take everything into account when determining who should get compensation."
That answer did not satisfy members of his own party. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he was "not a big fan" of the fund. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., referred to it bluntly as "the slush fund."
When Republican senators start using the same label as the plaintiffs suing your administration, the political ground is shaky. Roughly 1,600 people were charged in connection with January 6, and some were convicted of assaulting police officers. Many of those charged were later pardoned by Trump after he returned to office. Whether any of those individuals, pardoned or not, could receive taxpayer-funded payouts remains an open question the administration has not clearly answered.
The lawsuit argues the fund poses a direct threat to Dunn and Hodges personally. As the Washington Examiner reported, the complaint states:
"The Fund's mere existence sends a clear and chilling message: those who enact violence in President Trump's name will not just avoid punishment, they will be rewarded with riches."
The filing adds that "that message, by itself, substantially increases the already sizeable risk of vigilante violence Dunn and Hodges face on a near-daily basis."
Whether a federal judge agrees that the fund's existence constitutes a cognizable injury sufficient for standing remains to be seen. Courts have historically set a high bar for plaintiffs claiming future harm from government spending programs.
Conservatives who cheered the pardons of nonviolent January 6 defendants had a reasonable argument: many of those prosecuted received sentences wildly disproportionate to their conduct, while the Biden-era Justice Department treated trespassing cases like terrorism. That argument had merit.
But a $1.776 billion fund, created through a settlement rather than legislation, administered by a commission appointed by a single cabinet official, and funded from a standing Treasury account, is a different matter. It bypasses Congress. It lacks clear eligibility criteria. And when the attorney general cannot tell senators whether people who beat police officers on camera might collect a check, something has gone wrong in the design.
Legal experts and watchdog groups have questioned whether entities connected to Trump or his allies could ultimately benefit from the fund. The DOJ says Trump and his family won't receive direct payments. The word "direct" does a lot of work in that sentence.
The complaint itself leans heavily on political language, calling the fund a vehicle for "insurrectionists and paramilitary groups", that reads more like a press release than a legal brief. Dunn and Hodges have become familiar faces in the political ecosystem surrounding January 6, and their lawsuit will inevitably be read through that lens.
None of that changes the structural questions. If the executive branch can create a billion-dollar compensation program by settling a lawsuit with itself, without a single congressional vote, that is a precedent every American, left or right, should find troubling.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington. No hearing date has been announced. The complaint seeks to dissolve the fund and argues the settlement itself is legally defective.
The administration will have to defend both the fund's legality and its political wisdom, two separate problems. Blanche's testimony suggests the DOJ is not yet prepared to draw bright lines around who qualifies and who doesn't. Until those lines exist, the fund will remain a target for lawsuits and a headache for Republican leaders who would rather talk about tax cuts and border security.
Sen. Cassidy had it right when he called it a slush fund. When you can't explain who gets the money, how much they get, or why Congress wasn't asked, that's exactly what it is.
