Former Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday that the Department of Justice’s new compensation fund should be scrapped, calling it “deeply offensive” that it could provide payments to people who assaulted police officers or vandalized the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, Pence criticized the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, which was established to compensate people who claim they were unfairly targeted by the federal government. “The weaponization fund is a bad idea from the start, and I would encourage the administration just to drop it,” Pence said. “Let’s get rid of this fund. I mean, it’s deeply offensive to me that you could have a fund that could even possibly compensate people who assaulted police officers or vandalized the Capitol on Jan. 6.”
Pence added that he believed the view was “broadly held by most Republicans and most Americans.”
The anti-weaponization fund was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Friday.
The former vice president’s comments came in response to a question about whether people involved in the Jan. 6 attack could ever receive government compensation. The fund has drawn scrutiny because some pardoned Jan. 6 defendants could seek payments if they argue they were improperly investigated or prosecuted.
