Judge orders Trump administration to disclose who created $1.8bn ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

A US magistrate judge, Ivan Davis of the eastern district of Virginia, has ordered the government to turn over discovery identifying who designed the structure for a proposed $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund." The order comes as part of ongoing litigation brought by the non-profit Democracy Forward on behalf of several plaintiffs.

Democracy Forward filed suit challenging the settlement terms that created the payout scheme. Plaintiffs in the case include a former prosecutor who was fired and a college professor who was acquitted of assaulting federal agents during a protest tied to an immigration raid. They argue the settlement and the fund were improper, and they sought judicial review and discovery to trace who conceived and built the fund's framework.

The court's discovery order requires the Justice Department to produce materials showing who set up the fund's structure. That information is central to the plaintiffs' claim that the payout scheme was not a legitimate resolution of a genuine legal dispute but instead a vehicle to compensate certain groups of people.

Public statements and prior rulings

Todd Blanche, who proposed the fund before his confirmation as attorney general, later told media the fund is "dead" and never started. Nonetheless, other court rulings questioned the legitimacy of the underlying settlement. A federal district judge, Kathleen Williams, found the parties to the IRS lawsuit were never genuinely adversarial and said the case had been brought for an improper purpose to give judicial cover to a settlement lacking legal merit.

The fund drew bipartisan criticism in Washington. Two Republican senators, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, opposed the proposal. Democrats also warned the agreement could be used to compensate people forgiven or pardoned for participation in January 6. Senator Cory Booker said the settlement guaranteed nothing and warned it could be revived despite public claims that it was dead.

Even after public statements that the fund was abandoned, plaintiffs and Democracy Forward pressed the litigation because discovery could reveal whether the fund's structure remains recoverable or could be reconstituted. The magistrate judge's order forcing the government to disclose who set up that structure advances the plaintiffs' ability to probe how the payout mechanism was designed and by whom.

The immediate next step is production of the requested discovery materials by the government. That evidence will determine whether the court proceeds to further hearings or rulings on the merits of the plaintiffs' claims. The litigation will also test assertions by administration officials that the fund is permanently defunct.

The magistrate's discovery order does not itself dissolve or revive the fund. It compels the government to answer a basic question in the litigation: who built the payout apparatus. That information will shape whether courts find the settlement and the fund were proper or whether additional remedies are needed.