A Clinton-appointed federal judge has indefinitely extended her block on a $1.776 billion fund meant to compensate Americans who claimed government targeting, and is now demanding sworn declarations from three senior executive branch officials that the fund is truly finished.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia issued the extended order Friday. Her reasoning was direct: she does not believe the fund is actually dead. Brinkema gave Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent one week to file written sworn declarations, under penalty of perjury, that the fund will not proceed "in any manner, or under any name."
The fund traces to a settlement the Justice Department reached in May to resolve Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns to the press. Rather than direct payment to the Trump family, the agreement created what the DOJ called the Anti-Weaponization Fund: a mechanism to compensate Americans who, like Trump, claimed they had been targeted by what the settlement described as "weaponization and lawfare." The Trump family received a formal apology and no personal monetary payment. The deal also barred the IRS from investigating the family's past tax filings.
Opposition formed quickly. Democrats argued the $1.776 billion pool would effectively become a slush fund for Trump allies, including those convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The fund had no formal application process or publicly stated qualifying criteria in the settlement documents, a gap critics pointed to as evidence of its legal vulnerability. A challenge landed before Brinkema, a Clinton appointee on the federal bench in Alexandria since 1993. She issued an initial block after the settlement was announced and converted it to a preliminary injunction on June 12.
The administration handed the judge her opening. On June 2, Blanche testified before a House panel. "We're not moving forward with the fund, period," he told lawmakers, according to CNN. The next day, Trump was asked directly whether the fund was on hold or dead. "I don't know," he told reporters. That contradiction was enough for Brinkema to conclude that an assurance from a subordinate official, delivered one day and undercut by the president the next, carried no enforceable weight.
Her remedy is striking. Three of the most senior law enforcement and treasury officials in the federal government now face the prospect of filing sworn personal pledges with a district court, or explaining why they should not. Failure to comply accurately would expose them to perjury charges. Republicans and legal conservatives have argued that this kind of demand inverts the normal relationship between courts and the executive branch. A district judge requiring Cabinet secretaries to individually affirm their compliance with her rulings, as a condition of any future government action on the subject, is a form of judicial supervision with few obvious precedents.
What Comes Next
The administration has not said publicly whether it will file the declarations, challenge the order, or seek an emergency stay from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Virginia. That circuit has ruled on several of the administration's injunction fights this year with mixed results. If sworn statements are filed, the fund is almost certainly finished for the duration of Brinkema's oversight. If the administration disputes her authority to compel the declarations, the case moves up the appellate ladder and could reach the Supreme Court.
The one-week deadline Brinkema set gives the Justice Department until approximately June 19 to respond. The choice the administration makes will signal how far it is willing to push back against district court supervision of executive agreements, and whether a fund framed as restitution for government overreach will survive long enough to pay anyone at all.
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