While the Justice Department has said it has abandoned plans for President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion “weaponization” fund, some of his allies are shifting focus to a different way to make payouts to his supporters, including those who took part in the January 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
The most viable path, according to Trump allies and legal experts, may involve compensating these loyalists under a 1946 law called the Federal Tort Claims Act. That measure lets people file administrative claims – and subsequent lawsuits – against the U.S. government for alleged wrongdoing, which can then be settled out of court.
“At my level, the fund is dead,” Stanley Woodward, the third-ranking official at the Justice Department, said in an interview with Reuters. “If somebody wants to submit a claim against the government and sue us, they can still do that.”
The Republican president repeatedly has expressed support for federal payouts to supporters whom he has portrayed as being targeted by a “weaponized” U.S. government under his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.
But the “anti-weaponization” fund, crafted as part of a legal settlement between Trump and the Justice Department to resolve his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over allegedly mishandling his tax records, was put on hold amid fierce opposition from Republicans in Congress. Trump critics derided it as a slush fund to reward supporters with taxpayer money.
Hundreds of people who were prosecuted after taking part in the Capitol attack, which was a failed bid by Trump supporters to prevent Congress from certifying his 2020 election loss to Biden, already have filed claims, and at least 10 have sued the government for damages – so far with little response.
The strategy has long been in the works. Conservative lawyers debated the plan during a previously unreported strategy session at the 2024 Republican National Convention, according to longtime Trump ally Michael Caputo, who attended the meeting.
Other payout options are still being explored, according to Caputo, who helped lead “anti-weaponization” efforts in Trump’s 2024 election campaign and filed the first known claim under the now-abandoned “weaponization” fund.
“I’ve heard no indication that they’ve slowed down on trying to get victims paid,” Caputo said, adding that administration officials have told him to “watch this space.”
