WASHINGTON ― The Donald Trump administration’s top law enforcement official wouldn’t rule out Jan. 6 rioters getting payouts from a new “anti-weaponization fund” the administration created Monday. Asked by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) at a hearing Tuesday if people convicted of assaulting law enforcement would be eligible for payments, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested they would. “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were victims of weaponization,” Blanche said. The Justice Department announced the new fund as the result of a settlement between the Trump administration and Trump himself in which he withdrew his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over a past leak of his personal tax information. Trump also withdrew administrative claims he’d filed against the Justice Department over his supposed mistreatment during criminal investigations after his first term in the White House. Van Hollen called the fund a “pure theft” of public funds.“Rewarding individuals who committed crimes is obscene. Every American can see through this illegal, corrupt, self-dealing scheme,” Van Hollen said. An attorney who has filed administrative claims for injury payments from the Justice Department on behalf of hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters told HuffPost he’d lobbied the department to set up a compensation fund just like the anti-weaponization fund. Blanche admitted the fund was “unusual” but claimed it was similar to a commission created under President Barack Obama to compensate Native Americans denied loans on a discriminatory basis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1980s and ’90s. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) mocked Blanche’s claim the anti-weaponization fund has a precedent in the Keepseagle settlement, which was approved by a court in 2010. The earlier settlement also set specific criteria for who would be eligible for payments.“Did that case involve a president suing his own government and then settling that case before it could be reviewed or approved by a judge?” he asked.Coons again pressed Blanche to promise that people who assaulted police would not receive payouts. “Anybody can apply,” Blanche said. Close