The creation of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” at the Department of Justice may have shocked a lot of people, but not Paul Figley, a legal scholar and former DOJ staffer who has spent years warning that taxpayer money could be used by an administration for political ends in just this way.
The fund, the result of a settlement of legal claims by Donald Trump and his family against the IRS, aims to compensate those who “suffered weaponization and lawfare” at the hands of the federal government. It has already been called a “slush fund” by the New York Times editorial board, which noted – as many have – that it’s likely to pay much of its US$1.8 billion funding to Trump allies who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
