Lindsey Graham Plans to Salvage Anti-Weaponization Fund

Although the Justice Department on Tuesday nixed plans for a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” the concept of such a fund could still move forward in Congress.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has proposed establishing a process to compensate individuals wrongly targeted by the federal government by using legal mechanisms already in place under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday the Trump administration would not move forward with its anti-weaponization fund, the establishment of which was included in a recent settlement between President Donald Trump and the Internal Revenue Service over leaked tax records.

The fund, as announced, garnered skepticism even from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Democrats claimed the money would go to protesters at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, whom Trump pardoned in January 2025.

Graham admitted the fund as rolled out by the administration was “untested,” but maintained the need for victims of government lawfare to receive compensation.

“While I appreciate Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s statement that the proposed weaponization fund will not be moving forward, I am still of the firm belief that there are many victims of the weaponized Biden Justice Department throughout this country,” Graham said in a post on X Tuesday, barely an hour after Blanche addressed the House panel.

The House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government issued a 2024 report that asserted the administration of President Joe Biden pressured social media companies to suppress opposing viewpoints, retaliated against whistleblowers at the FBI, conducted financial surveillance of political enemies, and targeted parents at school board meetings,

“To suggest nothing happened and that the Biden DOJ did not weaponize the law against Americans is inaccurate. However, creating a new system that is untested is problematic,” Graham continued.

“Therefore, I am proposing that we create a weaponization fund that will be available to those who can prove their claim against the federal government through the Federal Tort Claims Act,” Graham continued in the post. “We have a legal system already in place for people to make claims against the government. That does not need to be reinvented.”

The Federal Tort Claims Act is a statute that allows individuals to bring limited lawsuits against the United States government in federal court for matters such as personal injury or property damage. The special law is necessary because the federal government has sovereign immunity from litigation.

“However, it is imperative that we allow people with meritorious weaponization claims to come forward and receive compensation through this fund,” Graham said in the post. “We have to recognize there was a wrong that must be made right if you can prove your claim through the existing process.”

The idea of the fund emerged as part of the legal settlement in the case Trump v. IRS.

In that case, the president, his son Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization LLC had sued the Treasury Department and the IRS in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida following the leak of their tax returns. As part of the settlement, the plaintiffs were to receive a formal apology but no monetary payment or damages.

The plaintiffs also agreed to the establishment of the Anti-Weaponization Fund in exchange for dropping pending litigation related to the 2022 FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property and the Justice Department’s investigation into alleged ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government.

The Justice Department said the anti-weaponization fund was based in part on a legal precedent set by the Obama administration in the Keepseagle case. That administration created a $760 million fund to address claims of discrimination against the federal government over several decades.