U.S. President Donald Trump holds a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday. On Friday, a federal judge temporarily blocked his administration's so-called anti-weaponization fund. Photo by Samuel Corum/UPI | License Photo
May 29 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Justice Department's $1.8 billion fund it created to compensate those who said they were unfairly investigated by previous presidents.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia said she issued the stay "to ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed from the Anti-Weaponization Fund ... while plaintiffs' Motion is pending."
Her order was in response to legal challenges to the fund, which the Justice Department said it created earlier this month to hear and redress claims of targeting by previous administrations. The fund was established as part of a settlement between the department and President Donald Trump and his two sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, to drop their $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
But both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have cried foul over the fund, with some accusing the Trump administration of planning to use it as a slush fund for Trump's allies, NBC News reported.
