The obscure 80-year-old law Trump DOJ could use for doomed slush fund

While the future of President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is in doubt, his Department of Justice is already opening the door to alleged victims of government weaponization to file claims under an obscure 80-year-old law that grants the DOJ uncapped funds to settle with people who say they faced politically motivated prosecution.

The Wall Street Journal reports that DOJ officials have “emphasized” that they have the authority to settle with alleged victims as they see fit.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward on social media declared Tuesday, “We’re on it,” before deleting the post. He was responding to a post by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a top Trump ally, who suggested the government could use the 80-year-old law to compensate alleged victims.

“I am still of the firm belief that there are many victims of the weaponized Biden Justice Department throughout this country,” Graham wrote on social media. “To suggest nothing happened and that the Biden DOJ did not weaponize the law against Americans is inaccurate. However, creating a new system that is untested is problematic.”

“We have a legal system already in place for people to make claims against the government,” he added. “That does not need to be reinvented.”

Some Trump supporters who were prosecuted for actions related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol are working to file lawsuits against the government.

“This game just got started, and this is just strike one,” said former Trump policy adviser Michael Caputo, who served as the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Public Affairs. Caputo submitted the first claim from Trump’s anti-weaponization fund: $2.7 million. The WSJ did not specify the nature of Caputo’s claim.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the 80-year-old fund Federal Tort Claims Act “allows claims for damages against the government when it engages in wrongful actions or negligence that causes personal injury or property damage.”

Last Friday, nine now-pardoned January 6 defendants filed a lawsuit seeking payouts under the 1946 law, the Journal reports. They are alleging selective enforcement based on their support for Trump that was “orchestrated by people at the highest levels of the DOJ and FBI.”

One of the January 6 plaintiffs told the Journal that some charged in connection with the attack might have settled for less through Trump’s anti-weaponization fund, but now they are “playing hardball,” given the DOJ’s uncapped fund.

“Legal experts say the new wave of ‘weaponization’ lawsuits could be handled differently, because the administration has shown sympathy to them,” according to the Journal.

“The plaintiffs’ lawyers in the cases are pushing on an open door,” Anthony Sebok, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law told the WSJ. “The Justice Department, like any competent defense firm, should be playing hardball, forcing plaintiffs to fight every step of the way to settlement.”

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