A former Capitol Police Officer and a current MPD Officer–both of whom helped defend the Capitol on January 6–have sued to stop the creation and implementation of Trump’s $ 1.776b slush fund.
Here is the standing portion of the Complaint:
- By creating the Anti-Weaponization Fund, funding it, and authorizing claim criteria that will allow it to make payments to, among others, Proud Boys and January 6 rioters, Defendantshave inflicted concrete and cognizable harms on Plaintiffs Dunn and Hodges.
- The Fund’s mere existence sends a clear and chilling message: those who enact violence in President Trump’s name will not just avoid punishment, they will be rewarded with riches. That message, by itself, substantially increases the already sizeable risk of vigilante
violence Dunn and Hodges face on a near-daily basis. And it encourages those who are harassing Dunn and Hodges, and sending them death threats, to up the ante.- These concrete, imminent injuries, which Defendants have caused, give Plaintiffs standing.
- And if and when the Fund begins making payments, Plaintiffs’ injuries will compound. In particular, if the rioters who have already accosted Plaintiffs in person on several occasions receive even a fraction of the $1.7 billion, the danger to Plaintiffs is enormous.
- Payments from the Fund will be used to finance the operations of those who have threatened and tried to kill Plaintiffs. The rioters and paramilitaries who tried to kill Dunn and Hodges on January 6, and who continue to threaten them today, need money for their operations.
- The January 6 rioters had caches of guns, pepper and bear spray, body armor, tactical gear, and communications equipment. Such sophisticated equipment is expensive to obtain and maintain.
- Accordingly, many rioters, including members of paramilitary groups, fundraised for their operations before and after January 6, and continue to do so today. Crowdfunding by rioters and their supporters since January 6 has raised at least $5.3 million. And Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes received donations as recently as May 16, 2026. The Fund will make render such fundraising far easier, supplementing online crowdfunding with public financing out of a confidential $1.7 billion slush fund.
- Earlier this year, on the fifth anniversary of January 6, Enrique Tarrio said that “[t]he thing that I’m searching for is retribution, retaliation.” After briefly disclaiming violence, Tarrio added, “I want them to pay. They made an example out of us, and we need to make an example out of them.”
- Compensating rioters like Tarrio through the Anti-Weaponization Fund will encourage them to seek that retribution, and furnish them with the resources to bring it about
I doubt this works. The mere existence of a law, rule, or program cannot cause injury. Accepting as true that both officers face daily threats and harassment and risks of vigilante violence, I question whether the promise of money sends a unique message of impunity that incentivizes future threats and violence. As for the risk that insurrectionists will use the proceeds to rearm and engage in future political violence, that risk threatens the public at large. It is not unique or particularized to these plaintiffs (one of whom has retired from law enforcement); their past injures at the hands of January 6 insurrectionists does not establish the risk of unique future injury.
The complaint also takes too narrow a focus by tying standing entirely to payments to January 6-ers. The fund raises many constitutional problems aside from that. Moreover, congressional Republicans are working hard to get Todd Blanche to commit that January 6 people are not eligible.1 Were Blanche to make that commitment, the asserted injury goes away–the slush fund neither incentivizes nor enables future violence against these plaintiffs.
The suit comes as everyone tries to figure out who has standing, refusing to accept the likely conclusion of “no one.”
- Yes, it is absurd to believe that payments to January 6 people represents the only problem or even that much of the public will stop caring about this issue so long as one group of bad people cannot recover. But we are talking about Susan Collins here. ↩︎