Why Trump’s $1.776B DOJ fund is raising alarms
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
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Summary
A new $1.776 billion Justice Department fund is raising big questions — about who could qualify and how the money might be used. The “anti-weaponization fund” stems from a settlement tied to a $10B lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump against the IRS. The DOJ says it’s meant to compensate people who were unjustly targeted by Justice. But the details leave key questions unresolved. Could some January 6 defendants be eligible? What role will a commission play in deciding payouts? And what does this mean for the Justice Department’s independence? USA TODAY Justice Correspondent Aysha Bagchi breaks down what we know — and what remains unclear.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Do you seriously think this arrangement is appropriate? |
| 0:04.0 | The president telling the federal government to settle a case and let him pay billions to the people that he chooses? |
| 0:11.0 | What you just described wouldn't be appropriate, and that's absolutely not what happened. |
| 0:15.0 | And that's not what's happening now. So you just set up a series of facts, most of which were not true to say is it, no, it's not. |
| 0:21.9 | Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche went to Capitol Hill this week for a hearing on the |
| 0:26.2 | Justice Department's budget, but Senators quickly zeroed in on something else, a newly announced |
| 0:31.8 | $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund. The Justice Department says the money is meant for people who were unjustly targeted. |
| 0:41.1 | Critics say the fund could potentially reward Trump allies, including some January 6th defendants. |
| 0:47.7 | Who's right? |
| 0:52.9 | Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. |
| 0:55.7 | I'm Zuley Kanathu, filling in for Dana Taylor. |
| 0:58.5 | Today is Friday, May 22, 2026. |
| 1:01.9 | Today we're looking at what this fund tells us about the politicization of the Justice Department |
| 1:06.9 | and the broader fight over its independence. |
| 1:10.1 | Joining us to dig into all of this is USA Today |
| 1:12.7 | Justice Department correspondent Asia Bogchi. Asia, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, |
| 1:17.9 | DeLaker. I'm happy to be here. Let's start with the fund itself. How did it come to be set up in the |
| 1:23.2 | first place? And what does the DOJ say its purposes? This fund came out of a lawsuit that Donald Trump and his two oldest sons and the Trump organization filed against the IRS. It's not the first time that the president has sued the government. This one has to do with a leak of his tax returns that happened previously. He was one of many thousands of people |
| 1:45.8 | whose tax returns were leaked, especially wealthy individuals by a contractor who had been |
| 1:51.7 | working at the IRS. So Donald Trump sued alleging that the IRS didn't have enough safeguards |
| 1:57.2 | in place to prevent this from happening. And he sued the government for $10 billion. |
| 2:01.6 | So it was a huge sticker price. What happened in this case is that the Justice Department and |
... |
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