Jim Acosta Brings Receipts to Argue He Qualifies for Trump’s Anti-Weaponization Fund: ‘Show Me the Money!’

Photo provided by Jim Acosta.

Jim Acosta shredded the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” President Donald Trump’s administration created to compensate people it says were targeted with investigations or prosecution for political reasons, pointing out that he personally had a very good claim, and he brought the receipts.

Last week, the Department of Justice announced it had agreed to settle a lawsuit Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization had filed against the IRS for leaking their tax returns. It’s been a highly controversial move for multiple reasons: Trump as president is now in the role of both the plaintiff in his lawsuit and in charge of the defendant government agencies, the fund purports to allow distribution of funds without congressional approval, and January 6 rioters who were pardoned by Trump are seeking a share of the funds — even those who assaulted law enforcement officers.

Even GOP members of Congress have been critical of this fund, with multiple Republicans willing to bash it on the record.

In a new post Thursday on his Substack titled “I’d Like to Apply for the Anti-Weaponization Fund,” Acosta wrote an open letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, arguing that Trump had “seized my White House press pass back in 2018, violating my First and Fifth Amendment rights, all part of a sustained government effort to destroy my career,” so “[s]houldn’t I be compensated?”

“Having been on the receiving end of some first-term Trump government weaponization, I think I have a pretty good case for some cold, hard ‘slush fund’ cash,” Acosta wrote, noting that the backers of this fund had made it sound like “just about anybody can apply.”

Among the reasons Acosta listed was the 2018 incident in which Trump “got really steamed at me” after the then-CNN White House correspondent asked the president a question about the “caravan” of migrants that was heading towards the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump attacked Acosta as “the enemy of the people” and “a rude, terrible person.”

“As I attempted to ask a question of the president, who was blowing his top, a White House intern tried to grab the microphone out of my hand,” Acosta continued. It was an “intense” moment, he added, and then White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders falsely accused him of placing his “hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern.”

This was a “lie,” but the White House used it as an excuse to revoke his White House hard press pass and Sanders tweeted “a doctored video” that “was sped up and modified in a way to create the impression I had ‘karate chopped’ the intern, something that never happened,” Acosta wrote, joking that he didn’t even know karate.

CNN and Acosta sued the Trump administration because of “these acts of government weaponization,” Acosta wrote, and a mere eight days later, “a Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the White House to hand over my hard pass,” denouncing the video Sanders had posted as “likely untrue and at least partly based on evidence of questionable accuracy.”

That same day, however, Acosta started getting death threats and other violent comments, necessitating “round the clock security for me and my family” and for CNN to “hire bodyguards to accompany me at Trump rallies, so I could continue my reporting.”

In a more recent example, Acosta detailed the Trump White House’s pressure campaign against television news anchors, reporters, and late-night hosts who have been critical of the president. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr had included Acosta’s exit from CNN when he “boasted” about the administration’s efforts to forcibly remake the media by ousting non-MAGA figures.

Acosta concluded by telling Blanche he was “submit[ting] a claim for $5 million” even though he “did not beat up any cops” like many of the January 6 rioters who have voiced their intentions to submit claims:

So Todd, as a result of this sustained government effort to destroy my career, I hereby submit my claim to the administration’s anti-weaponization fund. Now it’s true that I did not beat up any cops. Though I did hold a town hall with some police officers who heroically defended the Capitol on January 6th. Perhaps I should have left that part out too?

In the meantime, please make out a check for $5 million to Jim “Real News” Acosta. Proceeds from this payment will support the free press in America and continue the work of my independent media venture, free of corporate influence and government weaponization. Think of it this way. You will be making Donald Trump a paid subscriber. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Mediaite reached out to Acosta for comment, and he replied, “I think the post speaks for itself.”

“Show me the money!” he added, tongue in cheek.

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