Cops Who Defended the Capitol on Jan 6 Move to Block Trump’s Weaponization Fund

File Photo by: zz/STRF/STAR MAX/IPx via AP

Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, two police officers who defended lawmakers during the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to block the Trump administration from paying out the rioters they fought off that day.

Trump’s Justice Department stirred widespread controversy this week by settling the president’s lawsuit against the IRS and creating a nearly $1.8 billion fund to pay out to those whose claims that the government was weaponized against them are accepted by the DOJ. Critics of the settlement have decried its unprecedented nature, a president suing and settling with his own administration, and denounced the “slush fund” as a gift to MAGA allies.

“Although Trump and his cronies have been secretive about the fund’s ends, reporting leaves no doubt that it will be used, among other purposes, to pay the nearly 1,600 people charged with attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” the lawsuit says.

Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer, spoke to MS NOW about his lawsuit:

I had the opportunity to talk with lawyers about this. And we are going to sue to stop this illegal slush fund. Now, obviously, we encourage everybody else to sue. Everybody should, this can’t happen. So, we believe that we, the officers in this suit, will be harmed by this. We have been subjected to countless death threats in addition to all the violence that we faced on Jan. 6. But for just speaking out the truth, I mean, I guarantee you somebody’s watching this right now and typing death threats to us right now. And deaths only continue to embolden and potentially continue to arm a militia that Donald Trump will have on retainer.

Vice President JD Vance was pressed during Tuesday’s White House press briefing on whether or not the fund could be used to give taxpayer dollars to rioters who violently attacked law enforcement. Vance replied by saying anyone who believes they have been aggrieved by the government can file a claim for compensation from the fund, including Hunter Biden and presumably those rioters who attacked cops.

The New York Times reported that the basis of the lawsuit is an argument that the Trump administration “exceeded its statutory authority by creating the fund without the authorization of Congress.”

Nearly 100 House Democrats also joined together to file a motion to block the fund, arguing that the administration lacked the authority to create the fund via a court settlement and alleged a conflict of interest between the two settling parties.

“This President has continually asserted a maximalist view of his own Executive authority, foreclosing any possible argument that the agencies appearing here as Defendants have autonomy or independence from him,” the Democrats wrote in a statement on their motion. The statement added that the settlement raised “serious questions about whether the parties have manipulated the court system to achieve illicit ends.”

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