Two police officers who defended the US Capitol from rioters on January 6, 2021, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to halt President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of political “weaponization.”
In a complaint filed in federal court in Washington, former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges alleged 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 lawsuit seeks a court order blocking payments from the fund, calling it “the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century.”
Trump settled on Monday with the Internal Revenue Service, agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns during his first term. As part of the settlement, the Justice Department created the fund to compensate victims of political “weaponization.”
U.S. acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faced repeated questions over that fund during congressional testimony on Tuesday.
Blanche said the money could be given to members of any political party and is not limited to January 6 defendants. The standard for who will get money, he said, is defined broadly by those who experienced “weaponization.”
Dunn, a Black 15-year veteran of the police force that protects U.S. lawmakers, has been vocal about the physical and racist abuse he endured during the attack as Trump supporters sought to prevent Congress from certifying former President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, including before a bipartisan House of Representatives panel that investigated the deadly riot. He has said he battled post-traumatic stress disorder from the event.
During the Capitol attack, Hodges was pinned in a revolving door by a rioter wielding a police shield, a moment that became a viral video. He remains on Washington’s police force and has testified before Congress about his experience.