History will remember this day
Today was a dark day for America. At 10:24 this morning, the Department of Justice delivered another blow to our country when it bent to corruption and chose to reward political violence. In a press release posted on the official DOJ website, the $1.776 billion slush fund for Trump’s enablers, including the January 6 insurrectionists, was made official. Loud alarms were raised when this story first leaked, and now that it has been confirmed, we are watching the federal government openly transform into a loyalty machine for an authoritarian movement.
They named it “The Anti-Weaponization Fund.” On official paperwork, they are also calling it “The President Donald J. Trump Truth and Justice Commission.” And it will be funded with $1.776 billion. That number is not an accident. They chose 1776 on purpose. They are branding corruption as patriotism and trying to dress a slush fund in the language of American independence, so that we think this is a good thing. Good for our country and good for our fellow Americans. The money comes from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund, which the DOJ press release openly calls “a perpetual appropriation,” meaning a permanent, ongoing pool of taxpayer dollars that the Justice Department can draw from at will. Congress never voted on this, even though the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse.
And to stack corruption on top of corruption, the five-member commission that will hand out the money will be appointed by the Attorney General, or in this case, the acting Attorney General, Trump’s own criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanche. The President can also remove any member without cause. Quarterly reports go only to the Attorney General, with no requirement to inform Congress or the public. Audits are optional. The commission can issue payouts through December 15, 2028, which conveniently covers the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. Anyone who claims they were harmed by what the administration calls “weaponization and lawfare” can file a claim, including the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization are technically barred from direct payments. Entities associated with Trump are not. Which means Trump could still benefit financially.
The legal maneuver that made this possible is its own kind of fraud. Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS earlier this year. Federal Judge Kathleen Williams had already questioned whether Trump and the IRS were “sufficiently adverse” for the case to even be legitimate, because Trump is the president and the IRS is an agency he controls. She had ordered both sides to justify why the case should be allowed to proceed. And then today, days before her deadline, Trump’s lawyers filed a notice dismissing the lawsuit with prejudice, which means it can never be filed again. They argued the dismissal was “self-executing” and that “no judicial analysis is appropriate.” That language was specifically designed to bypass Judge Williams entirely. She did not get to rule or weigh in. The case was made to disappear before she could decide whether it was legal. And the price of making it disappear was the $1.776 billion fund.
This may very well be one of, if not the most dangerous abuses of power in the history of our country. Senator Ron Wyden called it “one of the most corrupt acts in American political history.” Senator Elizabeth Warren called it “an insane level of corruption.” Representative Jamie Raskin pointed out that only Congress has the constitutional authority to appropriate money, and Congress never voted on this. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called it “the most brazen act of self-dealing in the history of the presidency.” Ninety-three House Democrats filed an amicus brief warning of “the specter of corruption unparalleled in American history.” This is a constitutional crisis.
This fund is not compensation. It is not reconciliation. It is not justice. It is a standing infrastructure for rewarding political violence on Trump’s behalf. Until today, if you stormed the Capitol for him, you were gambling on a pardon. Trump delivered. He pardoned the January 6 defendants in his first weeks back in office. But pardons came after the fact. They were not guaranteed, and there was always a risk. As of today, that risk has been replaced with an investment opportunity. If you committed political violence on his behalf in the past, you can now file a claim. If you commit it on his behalf between now and the 2028 election, you can file a claim then, too. This is a signal to everyone who has ever wanted to break the law on his behalf, to interfere in our elections, and to stop the legal and constitutional transfer of power. Trump will protect you legally and financially.
And this is just one chapter of the playbook Trump is following to completely destroy what America used to be. This is the section about rewarding loyalty, protecting enablers, and teaching the entire country that allegiance to the regime is now more valuable than the rule of law.
Because when we think about how a government is supposed to work, it’s about shared resources. We pool our money through taxes. We do it because there are protections and services we cannot buy alone. It is not unlike shopping at Costco. You combine your resources with other people, and together you get access to things you could not afford individually. Roads. Schools. Disease surveillance. National parks. Medicare. A military. Disaster response. The government is supposed to take what we pool together and use it to deliver protections and enrichments that work for us. That is the entire point. Trump is using that pool against us.
The Anti-Weaponization Fund is our money. He is taking the money we pooled together to defend ourselves against harm, and he is using it to pay the people who attacked us on January 6. The math is that simple, and that grotesque.
This is the same pattern we have been watching for over a year. Look at Alligator Alcatraz, which the Trump administration announced this week is finally closing. That facility should never have been built in the first place. And when it was first announced, it was estimated at $450 million for a full year of operation. By the time it shut down, the operating costs had ballooned to nearly $1 billion. Court records showed it cost $1.2 million per day to run, with a $3 million per day burn rate in its earliest weeks. The per-bed cost reached $850 per day, more than four times the cost of standard ICE detention. That money went to the companies hired to operate it. It went to Trump’s enablers. The money was not spent on anything for the public. It was funneled to private companies and individuals, and then the whole project was shut down.
And it’s not just projects that he hires his own people for, like the reflecting pool; it’s also the programs that he has cut, like USAID. And taking us out of the World Health Organization. The United States formally withdrew on January 22 of this year. We were roughly 18 percent of the WHO’s total funding. We had access to the largest disease surveillance network on the planet at a fraction of what it would cost to build it alone. Trump pulled us out, and the same administration is now proposing to spend $2 billion per year to duplicate the disease surveillance systems we used to access through our WHO membership. Two billion dollars per year. To rebuild from scratch what we already had. And once again, that two billion will not go to public health. It will go to contractors, vendors, and loyalists, branded as a new initiative, delivered through a private supply chain that Trump’s allies will profit from. The pattern is so consistent. Every contract goes to someone in the orbit.
That is the theft pipeline. We pay in. He takes out. He hands it to enablers and enriches himself. And here is what tonight has clarified more than any other moment of his second term. The squeeze on us is not collateral damage. The squeeze is the whole point.
Every single thing Trump is doing is designed to make it so we cannot fight back. Because we cannot afford to. He is bleeding the American people dry so that he can concentrate the wealth at the top. He wants the people at the bottom to be too exhausted, scared, and desperate to protest, vote, and organize. Because desperate people cannot push back. Desperate people cannot afford to donate to politicians. Desperate people cannot fund legal challenges or run for office. Desperate people cannot pay attention, push back, or do anything except keep their heads down and try to survive.
That is the greater goal of this administration. He is trying to grind us down until resistance is impossible. He has a team of people sitting around the clock, creating ways to disenfranchise us, to take our money, to use taxpayer money against us, to make sure our needs are not met. They are taking away access to healthcare. They have gutted the Voting Rights Act. They are tightening ID requirements, restricting mail ballots, and they are just getting started. The economic squeeze and the voting squeeze are the same squeeze.
And when you understand that, the Anti-Weaponization Fund stops looking like a one-time corruption story. It starts looking like a launchpad.
Because the fund covers the 2026 midterms. It covers the 2028 presidential election. It runs through December 15, 2028. Trump is preparing for the next coup attempt, and he is preparing it with a budget line. The Trump loyalist base is so far down the tunnel of believing only what Trump tells them that they no longer recognize the truth. They will believe whatever he says about the election. And we already know what he is going to say. He is going to tell them it was stolen. He is going to point at the results and call them fraud. He is going to say the same lies he said in 2020, and the same lies he said in 2024 when he was preparing to lose. And this time, he is going to add something new. He is going to tell his followers that they have a pardon waiting if they act on his behalf. And he is going to tell them they will get paid through the Anti-Weaponization Fund, so they do not have to worry about their livelihoods, their families, or their futures. He will offer them protection, vindication, and money. That is what was made official today. This is January 6, version 2.0. And it is funded.
And this is why the power of the states is so important. Right now, and in the future. Because earlier today in Minnesota, Hennepin County filed criminal charges against ICE agent Christian Castro. Four counts of second-degree assault. One count of falsely reporting a crime. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. The charges relate to the January 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan national who was shot in the leg by federal officers in Minneapolis. A federal immigration agent has been criminally charged in connection with Operation Metro Surge, and it happened today, on the same day the federal government created a $1.776 billion fund to pay for political violence on Trump’s behalf.
Even if Castro’s case ends up moved to federal court, where he could try to claim immunity under the supremacy clause, what happened today still matters. A nationwide warrant has been issued for his arrest. The criminal complaint is filed and public. His decision to lie under oath is documented. And that record does not go away. Every ICE agent watching this needs to understand: even if you avoid prison, you do not avoid the record. Your name follows you. Your children read about it. Your grandchildren read about it. The country remembers who chose to follow the unlawful order and who refused. So before anyone else carries out the next raid, shooting, and cover-up, they should think hard about whether the paycheck is worth the rest of their life being defined by this kind of cruelty. Because history will not be kind to the people who chose this side.
And the polling released today shows the ground is shifting under his feet faster than he can keep up. The New York Times/Siena poll out this morning has Trump at 37 percent approval. People are becoming more and more disgusted by his destruction and dismantling of our country. And that gives us a real chance in November to limit his power grab and start holding him and his enablers responsible for everything they have done. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: Thank goodness for cats. This girl is the best writing companion.
Sources:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-anti-weaponization-fund
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/17/politics/irs-doj-trump-fund-billion
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-settles-10-billion-lawsuit-against-irs/
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/18/nx-s1-5825812/president-trump-drops-lawsuit-against-irs
https://time.com/article/2026/05/18/trump-doj-anti-weaponization-fund-irs-lawsuit-settlement/
https://www.axios.com/2026/05/18/trump-approval-rating-second-term-low
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5882920-donald-trump-withdraws-irs-lawsuit/
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/18/us/ice-agent-charged-minneapolis-shooting
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/florida-alligator-alcatraz-closure-june-2026/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alligator-alcatraz-shutdown-cost-florida-218-million-rcna227980
https://www.politifact.com/article/2026/may/18/alligator-alcatraz-florida-close-immigration-cost/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/02/19/alternative-world-health-organization-proposal/
https://www.cdc.gov/global-health/resources/us-withdrawal-who.html
Thankyou for writing this Heather, I can only imagine what it took out of you .
From here in the U.K we ask each other daily 'What is going on over there ? Why can't they stop this man? Why are they letting this happen ?
I was born just after WW11. My childhood was the rubble of Liverpool's dockside and the whispers of the grown-ups when mentally and physically shocked men staggered home in stained uniforms. Or didn't. I heard, from under the kitchen table, of ' natzzziz 'and 'jewiss' and of great ships that had been sunk and teenage boys in crashed planes, on fire, that had downed by, or on, the house of someone known or related . I grew up in the shock of post war rations and traumatised people and I felt the icy, unexplained, scary hand of ' something out there ' a post war Country, staggering under the weight of recent horror.
But then there were ' the Yanks' only a funny sounding word to me but one that brought a smile to people's lips and a nudge and a giggle from the women and a wry smile and nod of respect from the men. And I knew that those funny sounding people were friends and the word meant a good thing .
And now , that affection is still here in my generation , woven with our confusion and sorrow for those people and our wondering why ? Why can such a people not deal with this present horror ? Why are they allowing this to go on ? Scaring the world now like the first icy breath from Germany did all those long years ago . Is there nobody who can stop this ?
And then I tell who will listen about people like you Heather, who have lives and families and who work non stop to halt this new horror, who are giving all their time and knowledge and effort into stopping people from despairing and giving up and saying 'Too much, enough, I just can't deal with this any more.' Which is what 'they' want you to do, to give in, give up and let them be the new horror that breathes ice on the world. I tell them to have hope for America and think of all the good, ordinary people there and believe that this too will pass.
Thankyou for writing this Heather.
NEVER has the notion of hitting the 'like' button felt so inappropriate. Never have I wished away a summer. Forever, Heather, we're in your debt for the clarity on the insanity that grips your country.
How poetic, then, that 250 years on from freedom from my country, you fight for freedom in your own.