The Justice Department rebuffed a US judge’s invitation for top officials to submit a signed statement under oath that a $1.8 billion fund for what the administration described as victims of political “weaponization” will not happen.
California AG Bonta claims Trump weaponized the DOJ against Gov. Newsom, calling the federal probe political persecution despite California origins.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is just hours away from violating a judge's order on President Donald Trump's January 6 slush fund after thumbing his nose at it for weeks.U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema gave Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent until Friday afternoon to file sworn declarations confirming the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund is dead.As of Friday morning, nothing had been filed.Journalist Scott MacFarlane wrote that he had been checking the court docket all morning."Crickets," MacFarlane wrote.Brinkema extended her block on the fund on June 12 after ruling that Blanche's verbal claims to Congress were insufficient. She demanded written sworn declarations from both officials.The judge noted that Trump himself said after Blanche's testimony that he wanted to move forward with the fund — comments she said carried "a lot of weight," MS NOW reported.The fund was created through a private settlement of Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. Critics noted it could pay Jan. 6 defendants, including those convicted of assaulting police officers.Pooja Boistute, senior counsel at advocacy group Democracy Forward, said after the June 12 hearing she "honestly" did not believe Blanche and Bessent would comply."I think it will tell...a lot to the court that they have represented that they're terminating the fund, and there's no evidence to support that," Boistute said.It is not the only court where Blanche faces jeopardy. Georgetown Law professor and former senior Justice Department official Marty Lederman argued this week that a federal judge already has sufficient evidence to order a criminal contempt trial against Blanche over deportation flights that defied a court order in March 2025."While mistruths and obfuscation may be the standard playbook for the Trump-Vance administration, it is telling that they have repeatedly refused to say under oath that the Slush Fund is truly dead," said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward.If Blanche and Bessent file a sufficient declaration, the preliminary injunction will remain in place. If they don't, the court has said the case will proceed with the injunction in place.
President Donald Trump's Department of Justice thrashed a federal judge in a new court filing for demanding that DOJ officials and two Trump cabinet secretaries officially declare that Trump's "anti-weaponization" slush fund is officially dead. Last month, the Trump administration announced plans to create a $1.776 billion fund to pay claims from people who allege they were wrongfully prosecuted by the federal government. Several of Trump's allies, including formerly convicted members of the Proud Boys, declared that they would seek restitution from the fund, which sparked significant bipartisan pushback. Political analysts and experts have described the fund as a "slush fund" because the Trump DOJ would have full control over who is eligible for payments, and the legal paperwork establishing the fund states that the federal government bears no responsibility if crimes are committed by people who receive payments. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told the House and Senate judiciary committees that the administration is no longer pursuing the fund, but has refused to put that in writing. On Friday, the Trump DOJ told a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia that it won't abide by a demand to declare the fund dead. The DOJ argued in the filing that multiple Trump administration officials have said the fund is not moving forward, and those past statements should satisfy the court's demand. It also attached a copy of Blanche's testimony to Congress as evidence of its claims. "Such declarations are unnecessary, and the compelled testimony of senior officials from the Executive Branch implicates serious separation of powers concerns," the DOJ wrote in its filing. "Nor is there any basis for the court to compel testimony from the Associate Attorney General and two Cabinet members. The point of Article III limitations on judicial review is to prevent such overreach," it added.
The Department of Justice claims that it’s released every document that’s required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. But the agency previously said it collected more than six million pages of material during its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, and it only released around three million. So what’s in the rest of the Epstein files?The DOJ claims that the other three million pages are either duplicates, unrelated to Epstein, or protected by legal privilege. But because of the administration’s lack of transparency in regard to Epstein, many are concerned that something is still being hidden.CBS News analyzed the available files to try to figure out which documents appeared to be missing, and found a number of notable omissions: questionable redactions, missing emails from older accounts, lack of massage scheduling records after 2009, missing prison surveillance footage, and more.Notably, most of the emails in the released files were from an email account created in 2008, around the time Epstein went to jail: jeevacation@gmail.com.But Epstein had other, older email addresses that were mentioned in only a few, highly redacted publicly released files. One missing account, littlestjeff@yahoo.com, was from the early 2000s—the time when Epstein was most in touch with Donald Trump.Trump has repeatedly claimed that he is innocent of all charges when it comes to his connection with Epstein. But, as this analysis by CBS reveals, we may still be missing major pieces of the puzzle.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said Friday that it remains opposed to a proposed tax on California billionaires, even after the labor union backing the measure revised its plan following its qualification for the November ballot. The new initiative, from Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 2% tax on individuals […]
A senior Justice Department official called a judge's demand for a declaration on the status of the "anti-weaponization" fund "unnecessary."
The Court of Appeals shot down a bid by three elderly jurists challenging an 1869 law that sets the mandatory retirement age at 76, saying it violates their rights.
In an exclusive interview with The Post, Harmeet Dhillon sharply criticized Major League Baseball and the San Francisco Giants for what she called a “double standard” toward religious expression, as federal officials investigate whether Christian players were pressured to wear Pride-themed hats.