Judge blocks DOJ’s Anti-weaponization fund for longer

A federal judge in Virginia on Friday granted a longer block against the Department of Justice implementing a “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” saying that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s verbal claim that the fund was not going forward was an insufficient guarantee.

Judge Leonie Brinkema gave Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent a week to submit written sworn declarations that the fund was not going forward, as Blanche recently testified to Congress, MS NOW reported.

Brinkema’s issuance of a preliminary injunction against the $1.8 billion fund came at the request of plaintiffs who sued to permanently block it. The DOJ announced that the fund was being created as part of a settlement of President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for the leak of his tax records by an IRS contractor.

Brinkekma, during a court hearing on Friday, repeatedly said that Blanche’s recent testimony to Congress claiming that the DOJ was not going forward with the fund was not sufficient to guarantee that was the case, MS NOW reported.

The judge noted Trump said after Blanche’s testimony that he wanted to move forward with the fund, which Brinkema said raised doubts about the DOJ’s claims.

Pooja Boistute, senior counsel at the advocacy group Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs, said after the hearing, “We’re thrilled that the court understands that there’s harm to our plantiffs that she needs to stop and that’s harm to the American people as a whole that she needs to stop.”

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