{"id":223199,"date":"2026-09-05T19:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/judge-orders-trump-officials-to-disclose-who-set-up-the-1-8b-anti-weaponization-fund-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T19:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:55:17","slug":"judge-orders-trump-officials-to-disclose-who-set-up-the-1-8b-anti-weaponization-fund-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/judge-orders-trump-officials-to-disclose-who-set-up-the-1-8b-anti-weaponization-fund-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders Trump officials to disclose who set up the $1.8B \u2018anti-weaponization\u2019 fund – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration<\/a> to identify the people who came up with the structure for the nearly $1.8 billion \u201canti-weaponization fund\u201d that Attorney General Todd Blanche<\/a> has said is now \u201cdead.\u201d
U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis of the Eastern District of Virginia issued an order<\/a> that granted part of a motion from plaintiffs to compel discovery from the federal government, a person who was in the courtroom when the order was issued confirmed to NBC News. The order includes disclosing the names of the fund\u2019s architects, the person said.
The New York Times reported<\/a> on the details of the judge\u2019s order.
\u201cToday\u2019s order granting discovery is a significant step in getting to the bottom of the slush fund,\u201d Aman George, senior counsel at Democracy Forward, a nonprofit organization representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement. \u201cWe will continue to meet the government in court until our investigation is complete and the slush fund is permanently halted.\u201d
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday evening.
The fund \u2014 established as part of a settlement agreement<\/a> between President Donald Trump, two of his sons and his company, and the Internal Revenue Service <\/a>\u2014 aimed to set aside roughly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money as payouts for those who \u201csuffered weaponization and lawfare\u201d \u2014 a provision that could extend to Jan. 6 rioters convicted of violent crimes and later pardoned by Trump.
A federal judge temporarily blocked it in May <\/a>following a lawsuit filed by a fired Jan. 6 prosecutor and a law professor <\/a>who had been sued by the Trump administration. Career IRS workers also joined the lawsuit against the Trump-IRS agreement<\/a>, which made the president and several family members immune from IRS audits.
The \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund drew bipartisan criticism in Washington, putting Blanche\u2019s nomination as attorney general in jeopardy. He later put in writing that the fund \u201cis rescinded\u201d and that \u201cthere is no fund.\u201d But in a major legal loophole, <\/a>the document signed by Blanche did not include the signatories of the initial agreement, meaning the fund and related IRS immunity could be revived at a later date.
That loophole has lingered as Trump has refused to denounce the fund. At a Cabinet meeting this summer, <\/a>Trump, who has not ruled out giving payouts to Jan. 6 rioters, said that the fund \u201cis dead, but you know, I wish it weren\u2019t,\u201d and reiterated that he thinks \u201cpeople were horribly treated.\u201d
This week, Treniss Evans III, a Jan. 6 defendant who is seeking a $1 million payout from the government, posted a photo of himself in Blanche\u2019s office,<\/a> though a person familiar with the matter said that Evans did not meet with the attorney general. Evans was previously sentenced to 20 days in prison and three years\u2019 probation due to his participation in storming the Capitol.
Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.
Kyla Guilfoil is a breaking news reporter on the politics team for NBC News Digital.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeA federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to identify the people who came up with the structure for the nearly $1.8 billion \u201canti-weaponization fund\u201d that Attorney General Todd Blanche has said is now \u201cdead.\u201dU.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis of the Eastern District of Virginia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":223200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}