Donald Trump’s grotesque $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is rapidly devolving into exactly what critics warned it would become: a taxpayer-funded MAGA rewards program for insurrectionists, conspiracy peddlers, and potentially even convicted child abusers.
Yes — you read that correctly.
According to multiple reports, Andrew Paul Johnson, a January 6 rioter later sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing two middle-school-aged children, could potentially benefit from the fund Trump’s Justice Department is now setting up.
And when Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen directly asked Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche whether Johnson would be blocked from receiving taxpayer money, Blanche refused to say no.
Instead, Blanche bizarrely snapped back that Van Hollen was “obviously lying.”
That’s where we are now in Trump’s America: a top DOJ official bending over backward to avoid ruling out payouts to a convicted predator tied to the Capitol attack.
MAGA World Smells Free Money
The feeding frenzy has already begun.
One America News — the far-right propaganda network that pushed election lies so aggressively it got slammed with defamation lawsuits — is reportedly “seriously considering” filing a claim against the fund.
That means American taxpayers could soon be subsidizing the same conspiracy ecosystem that helped poison the country with lies about the 2020 election.
And OAN may only be the beginning.
CNN also reached out to Fox News about whether it planned to seek compensation after paying Dominion Voting Systems a staggering $787 million settlement for spreading election falsehoods. Fox has stayed quiet so far.
Meanwhile, January 6 rioters are openly calculating how much cash they think they deserve.
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio — convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years before Trump pardoned him — reportedly said he plans to apply for somewhere between $2 million and $5 million.
“I’m not greedy,” Tarrio said.
Apparently attempting to overthrow American democracy now comes with a compensation package.
Another attorney representing more than 400 Jan. 6 defendants complained the fund may not even be large enough.
“People lost multi-million dollar businesses,” attorney Peter Ticktin whined. “I don’t think the DOJ is ready for us yet.”
Not ready?
American taxpayers certainly aren’t ready to bankroll a MAGA grievance-industrial complex stuffed with rioters, extremists, and professional conspiracy merchants.
Trump’s DOJ Wants Taxpayers Funding Insurrectionists
The details get even uglier.
Blanche admitted under questioning that even people convicted of assaulting police officers during the Capitol attack may still qualify for payouts.
That means the same officers who were beaten, crushed, tased, sprayed, and traumatized on January 6 could now watch their attackers receive government checks.
Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and former D.C. officer Daniel Hodges have already filed suit against the fund, calling it what it plainly is: a “taxpayer-funded slush fund” for extremists.
Their lawsuit argues the scheme violates the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which bars the government from honoring obligations tied to insurrection or rebellion against the United States.
And frankly, it’s difficult to see how they’re wrong.
Democrats Move to Shut It Down
Rep. Jamie Raskin has now introduced legislation aimed at killing the fund before it fully mutates into a corruption free-for-all.
The bill — appropriately titled the *No Taxpayer-Funded Settlement Slush Funds Act* — would block payments to January 6 defendants, election deniers, and political insiders connected to Trump’s administration.
Raskin blasted the scheme as “highway robbery.”
“Trump is trying to commandeer nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds to bankroll a slush fund for January 6 cop-beaters and aggrieved MAGA foot soldiers,” Raskin said.
He’s right.
This isn’t restitution. It isn’t justice. It’s political patronage wrapped in victimhood theater.
Trump and his allies spent years portraying the Capitol attack as patriotic tourism while demonizing law enforcement officers who defended Congress. Now they want taxpayers to literally pay the participants.
And the deeper you look, the more obscene it gets.
One Jan. 6 defendant reportedly told the children he abused that he expected to receive millions from Trump’s fund — and allegedly tried to use that promise to buy their silence.
That’s the moral sewer this thing is crawling into.
The MAGA Victimhood Machine Never Stops
Perhaps the most revealing part of this entire spectacle is how shamelessly MAGA figures now frame themselves as persecuted heroes.
People who stormed the Capitol. People who spread election lies. People convicted of violent crimes. People pardoned by Trump after attacking democracy itself.
Now they’re lining up at the federal trough demanding checks.
And Trump is cheering it on.
When asked about the $1.8 billion figure, Trump reportedly dismissed it as “peanuts.”
Most Americans are struggling to pay rent, buy groceries, or survive medical bills — while Trumpworld debates whether convicted rioters deserve multi-million-dollar payouts for the inconvenience of being prosecuted after attacking the Capitol.
