{"id":610759,"date":"2026-05-29T18:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/610759\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T18:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:11:13","slug":"us-judge-halts-trumps-1-8bn-anti-weaponisation-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/610759\/","title":{"rendered":"US judge halts Trump&#8217;s $1.8bn &#8216;anti-weaponisation&#8217; fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While the memorandum creating the fund did not detail how individuals could qualify for payments, many Trump supporters who were prosecuted over the US Capitol riot on 6 January 2021 have said they plan to seek compensation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The creation of the fund prompted outcry from Democrats and some Republicans who were concerned that it did not have explicit congressional approval and would operate with little oversight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">John Thune, the Republican leader in the Senate, said he was not a &#8220;big fan&#8221; of the fund and that he was unclear on how claims would be processed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Virginia lawsuit was filed by two men who alleged the fund was discriminatory. They said they had been targeted for political retribution by the Trump administration but believed the administration would not allow them to file claims for compensation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is one of several legal challenges to the fund currently being considered by federal courts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Wednesday, a group of 35 former federal judges wrote a letter to the judge who oversaw Trump&#8217;s tax lawsuit, asking her to review the terms of the deal more thoroughly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The terms of the deal also block the IRS from reviewing tax filings that Trump, his family and his businesses made in the past.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The BBC has approached the US justice department for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the memorandum creating the fund did not detail how individuals could qualify for payments, many Trump supporters&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-610759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}