The proposed anti-gun fund continues to be blocked by court order.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – A U.S. Justice Department lawyer on Friday told a federal court judge that Trump administration officials deemed “unnecessary” a request that they sign a document under penalty of perjury claiming that a proposed anti-gun fund was dead.
On June 12, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema gave three senior administration officials a week to sign a document certifying that they had abandoned plans for the fund. But Andrew Block, senior adviser to the attorney general, argued no such guarantee was necessary. “As has been said several times, the fund is not moving forward.”
Brinkema, a Bill Clinton appointee, extended her pad indefinitely in the nearly $1.8 billion anti-gunnery fund, which was intended to compensate people who claimed they were targeted by the federal government.
She also said she would consider announcing the controversial challenge if acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed statements under penalty of perjury that the fund would not proceed “in any manner or under any name.”
Brinkema’s request that the fund not continue in any form addressed his displacement status. While Blanche told Congress the administration it would not move forward with the proposal, President Donald Trump later indicated that he still wanted it.
However, Block argued that the court already had sufficient guarantees. He pointed to Blanche’s congressional testimony and statements made by lawyers in court. “All of these statements were made against the backdrop of severe penalties for perjury,” Block wrote.
The court’s requests are unnecessary, he concluded. “And the assumption that the dispute could only arise from persuasive testimony from three senior government officials implicates concerns about the separation of powers.”
The fund emerged from a proposed settlement of a lawsuit that Trump filed against his administration, alleging that the disclosure of his tax returns by a former government contractor entitled him to $10 billion in damages. The settlement included a waiver that shields Trump and other plaintiffs from future audits and prosecutions, while the DOJ announced the creation of a $1.776 billion anti-gun fund.
The proposal drew criticism from Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans, who warned the fund could be used to compensate people involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
A coalition led by Andrew Floyd, a former assistant U.S. attorney who oversaw prosecutions stemming from the Jan. 6 attack, challenged the fund in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The plaintiffs said Floyd was fired for prosecuting Trump allies, who are now themselves entitled to recover from the fund. The lawsuit names Blanche, Bessent and Woodward as the defendants.
“It’s clear that even after the federal court gave them a week, the acting attorney general and other senior administration officials continue to refuse to say under oath that the slush fund is dead and will not operate in the future,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a legal foundation that filed the lawsuit. “Nor have they provided any information under oath regarding their compliance with the court’s previous instructions. Importantly, the slush fund remains frozen as a result of the court’s issuance of a preliminary injunction in our case, and that order remains in effect.”
Without a declaration in effect by June 19, Brinkema decided she would issue a planning order to move the case forward.
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