Two federal lawsuits filed May 22 seek to dismantle the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund created through a settlement between President Donald Trump and the Justice Department, with plaintiffs in both cases arguing the fund is unconstitutional, unlawful, and structured to evade public accountability.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A separate coalition of plaintiffs, including former federal prosecutor Andrew Floyd, the City of New Haven, Connecticut, the National Abortion Federation, and Common Cause, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Background
At the center of both disputes is a settlement resolving a lawsuit Trump filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in his personal capacity, joined by his sons Donald J. Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and The Trump Organization (Trump v. IRS, No. 1:26-cv-20609). That complaint alleged the IRS and Treasury Department failed to safeguard the plaintiffs’ confidential tax returns from unauthorized disclosure by former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, who is serving a five-year prison sentence for leaking tax data to the New York Times and ProPublica. Plaintiffs sought at least $10 billion in damages.
On May 18, Trump’s legal team filed a voluntary dismissal with prejudice, two days before a court-mandated deadline for the parties to address whether the court had jurisdiction over the case. Presiding Judge Kathleen M. Williams had previously questioned whether the parties were sufficiently adverse to each other so as to satisfy the Constitution’s case-or-controversy requirement, citing the extraordinary posture of a sitting president suing executive agencies under his own authority.
Under the settlement announced the same day, the DOJ agreed to transfer $1,776,000,000 from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund to an account for the Anti-Weaponization Fund, to be governed by five commission members appointed by the Attorney General, with one selected in consultation with congressional leadership. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order the following day releasing Trump, his family members, and affiliated entities from any government claims arising from the case or any related matters, including tax returns filed before the settlement date.
Complaints Allege the Fund Is Unlawful and Discriminatory
CREW’s complaint describes the fund as “a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption,” alleging it was “[e]ngineered by the President’s political appointees” and “designed to funnel $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund to purported victims of what the President considers ‘lawfare’ and government ‘weaponization.'”
The organization then argues that the fund lacks congressional authorization, was not the product of a judicially approved settlement, and was created without the notice-and-comment rulemaking required under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Its complaint contends the fund was “purpose-built to insulate the administration from public scrutiny,” with commission members holding final, unreviewable authority over disbursements and reporting to the Attorney General only through confidential quarterly submissions.
CREW also argues the fund operates as a de facto federal agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Records Act, given its authority to disburse $1.776 billion in public funds. Because the settlement order purports to exempt the fund from those statutes, CREW contends the arrangement is contrary to law.
Floyd’s complaint frames its challenge as an effort to “halt and set aside the creation and operation of this lawless Fund.” It states the fund was “[c]reated following a collusive agreement between the President and his own administration” and “has no congressional authorization, no basis in law, and no accountability.”
Floyd and his co-plaintiffs contend the fund facially discriminates on the basis of viewpoint. Under the fund’s governing agreement, eligible “Lawfare and Weaponization” is defined as targeting by “Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents.” Floyd’s complaint argues “the Anti-Weaponization Fund is available only to claimants who assert that they were targeted by ‘Democrat’ administrations,” and that “[n]either the First Amendment nor the Equal Protection guarantee of our Constitution countenance such blatant partiality.”
Both complaints allege violations of the Appropriations Clause, the APA, the Judgment Fund statute (31 U.S.C. § 1304), and the compromise settlement statute (28 U.S.C. § 2414).
Plaintiffs and Alleged Harms
CREW, which routinely uses FOIA to monitor executive branch spending, alleges the fund’s secrecy provisions block access to records it would otherwise be entitled to request and that the fund’s failure to preserve records as required under the Federal Records Act will cause irreparable harm.
Floyd, a career prosecutor in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office for nearly 11 years, alleges he was fired in June 2025 in retaliation for supervising January 6 prosecutions, work that made the same defendants now potentially eligible to receive payouts from the fund he seeks to dismantle.
New Haven alleges the administration has targeted it through retaliatory litigation and threatened funding cuts tied to its immigration policies. Jonathan Caravello, acquitted in April 2026 of federal assault charges stemming from his arrest at an immigration enforcement protest in 2025, alleges he is excluded from the fund solely because the administration that targeted him was not a Democratic predecessor.
NAF alleges the fund will further embolden criminal conduct against its member clinics by offering compensation to individuals convicted of FACE Act violations, some of whom have reoffended at NAF member clinics after receiving presidential pardons. Common Cause alleges the fund disrupts its election protection mission by rewarding individuals involved in the January 6 Capitol attack.
Both lawsuits ask the courts to declare the fund unconstitutional and invalid, and seek preliminary and permanent injunctions blocking the transfer of Judgment Fund monies and barring any claim payments pending resolution of the litigation.
“The unlawfulness that has imbued the Anti-Weaponization Fund from its inception requires that it be wholly dismantled,” read the Floyd complaint.
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