Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has permanently abandoned the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created as part of a May 18 settlement between President Donald Trump and the Internal Revenue Service, even as two federal courts continue to independently scrutinize the settlement’s constitutional foundations. “We are not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said. He declined to put that commitment in writing.

The settlement resolved a $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS and Treasury over the leak of his tax returns by former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn. A one-page addendum signed by Blanche on May 19, quietly added via hyperlink in a DOJ press release, declared the government “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing claims tied to the plaintiffs’ tax returns and barred prosecution for any conduct it characterizes as “Lawfare and/or Weaponization,” without defining either term. Blanche confirmed Tuesday that addendum remains in force. Rep. Rosa DeLauro said Blanche had given “the president’s family a tax immunity to the tune of about $100 million.” Blanche disputed that.

Former assistant US lawyer Andrew Floyd, who led the Capitol Siege Section task force prosecuting January 6 defendants before being dismissed by the DOJ in July 2025, and Jonathan Caravello, a California professor acquitted in April of felony assault on a federal officer, filed a complaint in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia alleging that the fund violates the First Amendment, the Appropriations Clause, and the equal protection guarantee, and that its eligibility criteria, limited to claims of targeting by “Democrat” administrations, structurally excluded the plaintiffs.

On May 29, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema blocked the DOJ from taking “any further action pursuant to the creation or operation” of the fund to “ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed” before a June 12 hearing. Separately, two Capitol officers, Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, filed a complaint in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging the fund would pay “the nearly 1,600 people charged with attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021” and endanger their lives.

In the court where the original IRS lawsuit was filed, US District Judge Kathleen Williams had set a May 20 deadline for the parties to address whether Trump’s suit was justiciable given that he controlled both sides of the dispute. Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on May 18, two days early, making no mention of any settlement. The DOJ announced the fund the same day.

On May 27, a group of 35 retired federal judges filed a motion under Rule 60 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure asking Williams to reopen the case, arguing the settlement “raises profound questions about the parties’ candor toward the Court.” The group included former Fourth Circuit Judge J. Michael Luttig, a George HW Bush appointee, and former US District Judges Nancy Gertner and Shira Scheindlin. “The unprecedentedly fraudulent scheme here more than warrants voiding the dismissal,” the filing stated. Williams ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond by June 12, writing that the “court is empowered to investigate serious misconduct.”

Judges Gertner and Luttig said Tuesday that even if the fund is fully terminated, that “in no way obviates the concerns that Judge Williams has raised,” and urged the court to “continue its inquiry.” As JURIST’s editorial director has noted, the audit ban’s sweep, covering all executive-branch agencies for any matter characterized as “Lawfare” or “Weaponization” indefinitely, goes beyond what any prior presidential settlement has claimed. Both cases are set for hearings June 12.