The Justice Department on Friday pushed back on a federal judge's request in the legal fight over the Trump administration's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund," arguing that sworn written declarations from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were both unwarranted and constitutionally problematic.
Andrew Block $SQ, senior counsel to Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward $WWD, contended in a filing that the administration had already put its position on record through multiple channels, including signed court briefs and statements before Judge Leonie Brinkema in open court, according to CNBC. He pointed to Blanche's earlier congressional testimony, in which the acting attorney general declared the fund "not going forward, period."
"All these statements were made against the backdrop of serious penalties for falsity," Block wrote, according to CBS News. "Accordingly, the Court's demands are unnecessary."
Brinkema had renewed her injunction against the fund the prior week, concluding that unsworn assurances — however repeatedly offered — were not a sufficient basis for winding down the case. The judge set a one-week deadline for the three officials to submit penalty-of-perjury declarations committing that the program would never be revived under any form or label, and made clear that the litigation would continue if no such filings arrived.
The department separately took to X $TWTR to characterize Brinkema's declaration request as an attempted judicial overreach into prosecutorial discretion, writing: "the judge's demand for declarations was an attempt to require her to personally sign-off on any and all future settlements, separate from this non-existent Fund, that the department may make. Judges do not get to insert themselves into the department's routine settlement authority."
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, the organization representing the plaintiffs, argued that DOJ's posture spoke volumes. "It is telling that even after the federal court gave them a week, the Acting Attorney General and other senior administration officials continue to refuse to say under oath that the Slush Fund is dead and won't operate in the future," Perryman said in a statement.
The DOJ first came under Brinkema's scrutiny after Trump publicly voiced enthusiasm for the fund following Blanche's congressional testimony, giving the judge reason to doubt whether the administration had fully abandoned the program. During a June 2 House hearing, Blanche said the fund would not proceed but declined repeated requests from Democratic lawmakers to put that commitment in writing.
Originating from a settlement tied to Trump's civil suit over the leak of his tax returns by a government contractor, the fund had been unveiled by the Justice Department in May. Lawmakers from both parties raised alarms that the fund's structure left the door open to payments benefiting Trump supporters, among them participants in the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol. Among those suing in Brinkema's court were a former federal prosecutor, New Haven, Connecticut, and two nonprofit groups.