'Slush Fund' or not, Jan. 6 insurrectionists seeking payouts from the federal government

 The Treasury Department is illegally withholding information about who is receiving settlement money from its Judgment Fund, obscuring whether January 6th insurrectionists and Trump political allies are receiving massive payouts from the federal government, according to a lawsuit filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The suit seeks to require the government to promptly post required information about Judgment Fund payments, including all payments going back to the start of the current Trump administration, as well as correcting inaccurate descriptions of previous payments. 

In May 2026, President Trump entered into an unprecedented “settlement” with his own Justice Department, which established a $1.776 billion slush fund intended to pay out victims of “weaponization,” including January 6th defendants. The slush fund garnered significant backlash, and the Trump administration declared the fund dead, before formally rescinding the order establishing the fund this weekend under duress from Congress. It remains unclear whether the DOJ can unilaterally rescind the order without agreement from the other litigants involved in the underlying suit, including litigant Trump. With the slush fund in limbo, Trump’s allies, including January 6th defendants, have apparently turned to pursuing payouts through the Federal Tort Claims Act settlement process, seeking millions of dollars in “restitution” for alleged wrongdoings related to their prosecution. 

When the government settles with an individual under the FTCA, the Treasury Department pays that individual from its Judgment Fund. The Treasury Department is legally required to publicly disclose important settlement payment details, such as the names of claimants and their counsel, and a brief statement of facts giving rise to the claims being settled. Treasury, however, has for years adopted an across-the-board policy of noncompliance—omitting names and facts in every case and instead publishing opaque descriptors that are often inaccurate or misleading. The law requiring the disclosure of settlement payments was passed on a bipartisan basis, and was primarily sponsored by Republican Rep. Doug Collins. 

“Taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going and why, especially if it’s going to the president’s cronies,” said CREW President and CEO Donald K. Sherman. “The Trump administration seems hellbent on secretly paying out Trump’s allies, including the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6th. There is a law in place to prevent this secrecy, and the Treasury Department needs to follow it.”

The Trump administration’s misuse of the FTCA claims settlement process is not mere conjecture. For months, the Justice Department has been led by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who approved and defended Trump’s initial collusive settlement. Under Blanche’s leadership as Deputy Attorney General and later Acting Attorney General, the DOJ has awarded generous settlements to January 6th participants and other political allies despite obvious defenses the government could have used to challenge the claims they asserted. In one especially egregious example, the Justice Department agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle an FTCA case brought by Trump’s former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, for wrongful prosecution, despite the fact that Flynn had pleaded guilty to his crimes and a district court had already dismissed Flynn’s FTCA case. The Treasury Department has withheld payment information related to these suspect settlements.

“Even if President Trump’s slush fund is nominally dead—something that still remains in doubt despite Acting Attorney General Blanche’s rescission of the DOJ’s order—his administration is apparently ok with using the Judgment Fund in its place,” said Sherman. “The law does not allow the government to spend taxpayer dollars in secret. If the president is paying his cronies, the public is entitled to know.”

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