US President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, May 21, 2026.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Two new lawsuits challenging the creation of the controversial $1.8 billion ‘lawfare” fund by the Department of Justice were filed Friday in federal courts in Washington, D.C. and Virginia.
The civil complaints come as several members of Congress have introduced legislation to block the fund, and as President Donald Trump and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche have defended it.
The two suits say the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund, which was set up as part of a settlement of a $10 billion lawsuit by Trump against the Internal Revenue Service, violate the federal Administrative Procedure Act. One also alleges that it violates the U.S. Constitution, while the other says it violates the Freedom of Information Act.
Trump got no money in the settlement. But the fund is intended to compensate many of his supporters who allege they were victims of prosecutorial overreach by the DOJ under the Biden administration. And Trump and his family members are getting immunity from IRS enforcement actions related to their tax returns under the settlement.
“Created following a collusive agreement between the President and his own administration, this Fund has no congressional authorization, no basis in law, and no accountability,” the civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia alleges.
One of the plaintiffs in the case is Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor who has said he was fired last year for his work prosecuting cases against Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The other plaintiffs are Jonathan Caravello, a professor at California State University Channel Islands, and the city of New Haven, Conn.
Caravello was arrested in 2025 while protesting an immigration raid in California, and subsequently acquitted in April of what he called a baseless charge of felony assault of a federal officer using a deadly or dangerous weapon.
New Haven has been sued by the Trump administration for acting as a so-called sanctuary city for immigrants.
The other complaint was filed in D.C. federal court by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, known as CREW.
“The Slush Fund Order’s secrecy provisions enable Defendants to circumvent the Judgment Fund statute’s public disclosure requirements,” that suit says.
“And they allow Defendants to evade public scorn for awarding taxpayer funds to, for example, a pardoned January 6 insurrectionist later convicted and sentenced to life in prison for child sex abuse crimes, a pardoned insurrectionist and threatened assassin, and numerous other convicted felons pardoned by President Trump who are now clamoring for taxpayer-funded ‘restitution’ from Defendants’ illegal Slush Fund.”
The suits come two days after two police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,