U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing, China, May 15, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Pool
When President Donald Trump and his allies dropped their $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), there was a condition: the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) would create a $1.7 billion fund to settle claims by people who say they were wrongly targeted for "lawfare" during Joe Biden's presidency.
Democrats on Capitol Hill are attacking the fund as a "slush fund," but Democrats aren't the only ones speaking out. The conservative National Review's editors are vehemently critical of the fund in a blistering editorial.
"Donald Trump has dropped his $10 billion damages lawsuit against the IRS," the Review editors write. "What he's doing instead may be even worse…. Immediately on the heels of the dismissal of the IRS suit, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that, as part of a deal to settle that case, DOJ is creating an 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' of $1.776 billion. This is reportedly designed to establish 'a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare' under Joe Biden, potentially including defendants in January 6 prosecutions."
The conservative Review editors continue, "Blanche's letter explains that the obviously symbolic $1.776 billion figure 'does not represent the value of any claim by Plaintiffs, but rather is based on the projected valuation of future claimants' claims.' Tellingly, the new fund is designed to expire 'no later than December 1, 2028,' so all the money will be dispensed by the current administration."
The Review editors go onto argue that "hard-to-supervise slush funds aimed at financing well-connected political allies are exactly the sort of thing a populist presidency is supposed to end."
"It also represents a favored tactic of the left: gain control of an institution, 'apologize' for what its former leaders did, and use the apology as an excuse to loot the Treasury to pay 'reparations,'" the editors write. "That's no more justifiable when the right does it. This may be legal, in the sense that Congress created and funds a permanent Judgment Fund for settling lawsuits against the United States, rather than requiring such settlements to gain case-by-case legislative approval, as was true in the early republic. But there is also nothing in the Constitution that requires Congress to passively let this sort of thing happen."
