June 13, 2026
While the Justice Department has said it has abandoned plans for President Donald Trump's proposed $1.8 billion "weaponisation" fund, some of his allies are shifting focus to a different way to make payouts to his supporters, including those who took part in the Jan 6, 2021, riot on the US Capitol.
The most viable path, according to Trump allies and legal experts, may involve compensating these loyalists under a 1946 law called the Federal Tort Claims Act. That measure lets people file administrative claims - and subsequent lawsuits - against the US government for alleged wrongdoing, which can then be settled out of court.
"At my level, the fund is dead," Stanley Woodward, the third-ranking official at the Justice Department, said in an interview with Reuters. "If somebody wants to submit a claim against the government and sue us, they can still do that."
The Republican president repeatedly has expressed support for federal payouts to supporters whom he has portrayed as being targeted by a "weaponised" US government under his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.
