U.S. President Donald Trump leaves a St. Patrick's Day event in the East Room of the White House on March 17, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images).
President Donald Trump met a quick judicial brick wall in Virginia on Friday over efforts to settle his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and transmogrify the resulting "settlement" with himself into a so-called "anti-weaponization fund" valued at a symbolic $1.776 billion.
In a terse, two-page order, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, a Bill Clinton appointee, enjoined the U.S. Department of Justice "from taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation of" the fund, including transferring money to the fund, considering any claims submitted to the fund, and disbursing any money from the fund.
That order may be just the beginning of Trump's concrete legal problems with what his critics have derided as a "slush fund."
The Friday ruling came in a lawsuit filed last week by Andrew Floyd — a former federal prosecutor who previously led a task force in the now-defunct Capitol Siege Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia and prosecuted Trump supporters allegedly involved in the Jan. 6 attack — and others who argue they "were targeted by the Trump-Vance administration as ideological or political opponents."
The Virginia court's quick kibosh on any transfers to, consideration of claims regarding, or outlays from the fund is underscored by the number of similar lawsuits and claims. There are at least four other litigants or discrete parties who have filed the requisite paperwork for other federal judges to issue similar relief — at least in theory.
One such motion came in the original case filed by the 45th and 47th president against his own political appointees in the Southern District of Florida, as Law&Crime previously reported.
In that motion, nearly three dozen former federal judges implored U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, a Barack Obama appointee, to disregard the "fraudulent nature" of Trump's voluntary dismissal, "reopen" the case, and look into "exactly what happened here."
While Williams might be loath to try to reopen a case she dismissed with prejudice — though whether or not the 35 retired judges will be able to maintain their objections to the fund under the auspices of the original lawsuit is an open question — the goings-on in Florida are just one part of the phalanx Trump will have to beat back.
Earlier last week, former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges — who both helped defend the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — sued Trump to nix what they termed "the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century."
"Trump has created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name," the filing argues. "The fund, styled the 'Anti-Weaponization Fund,' is illegal. No statute authorizes its creation, the settlement on which it is premised is a corrupt sham, and its design violates the Constitution and federal law."
The Dunn and Hodges case has been assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon — a George W. Bush appointee who has, as of late, become one of Trump's harshest critics on the bench.
The prospects for a judicially approved bonanza from Leon's court are dim — and there are still more obstacles ahead.
On May 22, Citizens for Responsibility in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan nonprofit government watchdog group, sued a large number of agencies, department heads, and the fund itself.
"The Slush Fund is a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption," the original petition argues. "And it is brazenly illegal. Unlike prior victim compensation funds, it was not authorized by Congress. Nor was the Fund the product of a judicially approved, arm's length legal settlement. It was created solely by Executive fiat, an unconstitutional taxpayer-funded giveaway to the President's allies that is wholly untethered from the claims asserted in Trump v. IRS."
Perhaps fortuitously for CREW — and perhaps unluckily for Trump and the would-be beneficiaries of the fund — that case has also been randomly assigned to Leon.
This week brought yet another challenge.
On Thursday, Allison Gill, who hosts the "Mueller, She Wrote" podcast, sued the DOJ and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on the basis that the establishment of the fund violated the "notice-and-comment process required by" the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
"Defendants have failed to meet the APA's requirement that a federal agency may promulgate legislative rules only after publishing notice of the proposed rule in the Federal Register and providing interested parties an opportunity to comment," the latest lawsuit challenging the fund reads. "A settlement agreement cannot modify the APA's procedural requirements or authorize federal agencies to deprive third parties of their statutory rights."
Gill's complaint — filed in the Southern District of California — offers a novel administrative law challenge against the government's efforts at what is widely being criticized as self-dealing.
While the above complaints — whether alone or collectively — do not necessarily spell the end of the fund, their sheer number and disparate nature portend an eventual clash before courts of appeal and, in time, presumably the U.S. Supreme Court itself.