A January 6 Attorney’s Assessment of the Anti-Weaponization Fund

by Jonatha

n Gross

People have been asking for my thoughts on the DOJ’s newly announced Anti-Weaponization Fund. I represented January 6 defendants. I watched what happened to them up close, for years. Here is my honest assessment.

On May 18, 2026, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the creation of a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of a settlement resolving President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. The $1.776 billion will be placed into a dedicated account overseen by a five-member commission and answer to the Attorney General. The fund closes on December 1, 2028, at which point any unspent money reverts to the government.

The DOJ has not yet announced when applications will open, what the eligibility criteria are, or how claims will be evaluated.

I believe President Trump is sincere in wanting to address weaponization. But President Trump said in a press conference that he did not have anything to do with the creation of the fund. Based on what we’ve learned and observed about this administration there are reasons many victims are skeptical.

The Track Record

This is not the first time the administration promised to address weaponization. In January 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14147, establishing a Weaponization Working Group within the DOJ under then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a formal memo on the group on February 5, 2025. That was more than a year ago.

The working group has produced no public reports. No January 6 defendants have been officially interviewed. No victims of general weaponization have been interviewed.

A separate executive order, 14202, did produce a report on religious liberty and Christian bias. That report ran approximately 500 pages of facts and documents largely drawn from information that was already in the public domain because of the victims, activists, and investigative journalists, with no help from the federal government. There was no identification of specific wrongdoers. There was no discipline. The recommendations were vague and general.

This is what the DOJ under Todd Blanche has accomplished – or failed to accomplish – over the last year and a half. It makes many skeptical of this latest initiative.

Weaponization Is Ongoing Inside DOJ Right Now

Weaponization is not a historical problem. It’s still going on.

Last week, I wrote about the case of Michael Castillero, a Trump donor who was convicted under the Biden administration and is now awaiting sentencing. After his conviction, he gave media interviews — including one on Diamond and Silk — in which he said he believed he had been politically targeted. On May 13, 2026, the SDNY filed a letter with Judge Furman cataloguing those interviews and asking the judge to impose additional prison time as punishment for making those statements. The DOJ’s position is that suggesting a prosecution may be politically motivated is an aggravating factor at sentencing — that it is, in their words, a “false statement” rather than a protected opinion. At his sentencing, he was in fact given additional time because he alleged that the Biden DOJ engaged in politically motivated weaponization.

This case is not an exception. It is evidence that the same weaponization this fund is meant to remedy is continuing under the current DOJ leadership. The fund was announced the same week SDNY requested a defendant be punished for alleging weaponization.

Who Is Running the DOJ

Todd Blanche is the Acting Attorney General. He has been in effective charge of the DOJ since the beginning of the Trump administration, either as Acting AG or as Deputy AG.

As a reminder, Blanche was a federal prosecutor at the Southern District of New York during a period when that office prosecuted Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative commentator, for a “campaign finance violation” involving $20,000 that federal prosecutors didn’t notice until – conveniently – right after D’Souza released a film critical of President Obama. Blanche later became a partner at WilmerHale, a law firm that President Trump specifically named in an executive order as having engaged in lawfare and weaponization. He is also the attorney who represented President Trump in the New York criminal case that ended in 34 guilty verdicts. DOJ’s failure to take any meaningful measures to address weaponization has unfolded under his watch.

It is also worth noting that the DOJ is currently litigating against January 6 defendants in civil cases — not just in opposition to monetary claims, but in some cases to resist releasing information to the public. DOJ has done nothing to release video and other documents that would provide the public with the truth about J6. Judicial Watch just had a major victory in releasing body cam video, no thanks to DOJ. The DOJ is also fighting to lift the protective order that would allow public access to more information.

The Money Isn’t Enough

$1.776 billion is a significant sum. It is not sufficient for what has been described as the universe of eligible claimants.

Start with January 6 alone. There are approximately 1,600 defendants. How much are each of their claims worth? Senator Lindsey Graham alleged that his communications were improperly read by the government and demanded that Congress pass a law allowing him to sue for a claim that he valued at $500,000. If that’s worth half a million, consider a J6er who merely trespassed but was subjected to a battery of constitutional and human rights violations, including but not limited to: surveillance, predawn raids with guns pointed at their children, pretrial detention in solitary confinement in the D.C. gulag where food and water was denied for punitive reasons, coercion to take a plea or else face prolonged detention, additional charges, and longer sentences.

If a senator’s email claim is worth $500,000, a reasonable valuation of what many J6 defendants experienced runs into the millions per person. Seventeen hundred people could each receive one million dollars from a $1.776 billion fund. There are nearly 1,600 J6 defendants alone, and the fund is open to all claimants alleging any form of federal weaponization.

Unfortunately, the problem is so pervasive that J6ers are not the only ones who are rightly entitled to compensation.  Consider pro-life activists prosecuted under FACE Act provisions. People who were arrested and prosecuted for posting memes. Attorneys who were prosecuted and disbarred for litigating election integrity cases. People who allege they can definitely prove they were targeted because their business or political activity ruffled the feathers of the wrong federal official or corporate interest with high-level connections inside DOJ. The scope of what is claimed to be addressed is enormous. Read Jerome Corsi’s book “Silent No More” about how he was victimized by the Mueller investigation in a way that would make the Soviets blush. Watch the made-for-television arrest of Roger Stone, conducted with a SWAT team at dawn.

$1.776 billion, distributed across the actual universe of people who may have legitimate claims, is a small fraction of the total harm — and there is no mechanism in the fund’s structure to prioritize J6 defendants or any other particular group.

There is not Enough Time

Pursuant to its own terms, the fund closes December 1, 2028. At the time of this writing, that is just over 900 days away, or roughly 600 working days.

No application process has been announced. The five-member commission has not been named. No eligibility criteria have been published. Before anyone can apply, the commission must be assembled, the application process must be designed and announced, and the portal must be built and made operational.

Once applications begin, consider the math. The fund is open to anyone alleging federal weaponization — a category that encompasses an enormous number of potential claimants. Even at one completed case per working day with no delays, the commission could not process all January 6 cases alone in that timeframe, let alone the broader universe of claimants.

There was a fund set up for victims of 9/11 days after 9/11 in September of 2001. The fund is still processing claims today, 25 years later. But this weaponization fund only has 600 working days to get the job done.

The Lawsuits Will Consume More of That Time and May Succeed

The fund is already facing legal challenges seeking to block the fund. Whether or not the lawsuits against the fund ultimately prevail, litigation takes time. The 9/11 Victims fund was also challenged and was litigated for more than a year.

The cases challenging the weaponization fund will be heard by federal judges, some of whom presided over January 6 prosecutions and called J6ers terrorists and threats to the very fabric of democracy. What are the chances of favorable rulings from those judges? Consider how many of President Trump’s other initiatives have been struck down by the court.

Fraud

Then there is the issue of fraudulent claims. Whenever the government gives out money you can count on criminals gaming the system. Ask Nick Shirley. The floodgates will open to thousands of frivolous claims that will divert funds from actual victims of weaponization or at the very least slow down the process.

Ironically, it creates a trip wire for further weaponization. In 2011, a retired Navy commander was convicted of allegedly defrauding the 9/11 victims fund. He was at the Pentagon when it was attacked, but upon a second look the government decided that his injuries were not as bad as he reported. He was charged with “fraud” and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Nothing stops a later administration from taking a second look at some of the recipients of the weaponization fund and concluding that the claims were “fraudulent” and not as bad as initially reported. Ironically, the weaponization fund can be weaponized.

We Do Not Know Who Will Sit on the Commission

The five commission members will be appointed by the Attorney General, with one selected in consultation with congressional leadership. No names have been announced.

This matters enormously. The commission members will determine the eligibility criteria in practice, the valuation of claims, and who reaches the front of the line. Their background and orientation toward the events of January 6 — and toward federal prosecution practices generally — will shape every outcome the fund produces.

I represented January 6 defendants during the years when almost no one else would. The establishment politicians, pundits, and attorneys were silent during that dark period. They could have prevented or at least mitigated the damage by speaking out on behalf of victims who had nobody to speak for them. But they were silent while others suffered. Are those the people who are going to be on the committee? Will the people who caused the problem be the ones put in charge of fixing it.

The Weaponization Fund is not a Solution for the Problem of Weaponization

Even if every one of the concerns above were resolved the fund would still leave the most important problem untouched.

There will be no consequences for the agents who conducted predawn raids, the lawyers who designed charging strategies to maximize pressure, the jailers who held pretrial detainees in inhumane conditions. The federal government’s capacity to open investigations, prosecute selectively, and destroy individuals through the process itself remains fully intact. No one has faced professional consequences. No one has been fired as a result of any finding of misconduct related to J6 or any other case of alleged weaponization.

Money paid to past victims does not prevent future victims. As long as we have the unchecked Police State, weaponization will continue.

I hope the fund pays as many people as possible, and pays them fairly. These individuals have been through experiences that many Americans still do not fully understand, and they deserve whatever compensation they can obtain.

But the announcement of the fund does not solve the problem.

We need an additional fund of $1.7 billion to set up an independent agency to audit the FBI, DOJ, BOP, and other agencies. The investigators need to be people who know the system for what it is and hate the system. No more federal prosecutors. No more podcasters. No more people from Harvard and Yale hoping to make their career by participating in the revolving door of federal government to fancy law firms.

Weaponization is our country’s biggest problem. Whatever issue you are passionate about – immigration, foreign policy, economics – it won’t matter when you’re sitting in solitary confinement in an orange jumpsuit.

This is our last chance. President Trump, if you’re reading this, we are begging you. Please put a stop to this nightmare where the people fear the government and restore us to be a country where the government fears the people. If you don’t we will be in serious trouble in 2029. If you do, you’re second term will come to be known as the Great Emancipation, and your personal legacy will be alongside with Moses and Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. Each life that you save is an entire universe, and that person’s descendants will remember you as their redeemer for generations.