Former judges are mounting a legal offensive against Trump’s new $1.8 billion compensation structure because they fear what future presidents could do with it..
Note which instrument was used. Not a bill. Not a statute. Not a congressional authorization debated in committee and passed by elected representatives accountable to voters. A settlement — negotiated between a president and the executive agencies under his direct authority, resolving litigation the president himself initiated — producing a compensation structure worth $1.776 billion, administered through a mechanism the Judgment Fund that Congress created for an entirely different purpose and that, until now, almost nobody outside administrative law had reason to think about.
The Judgment Fund exists because government loses lawsuits. When it does, the money to satisfy those judgments has to come from somewhere, and requiring a new appropriations vote for every settled claim would make federal litigation administratively unworkable. It is supposed to be boring. It is supposed to be invisible. Critics now argue it has been used to do something it was never designed to do: create a large, politically directed compensation pool, controlled by figures aligned with the executive, available to claimants whose primary qualification is that they believe themselves to have been victimized by the government the president now runs. If courts allow it to function as described, future presidents will have been shown a model.
Jack is correct that the January 6th question is not a distraction from the main story. It is the main story made visible. When officials declined to fully exclude Capitol attack participants from potential eligibility, they revealed the operative definition of victimhood inside this framework. A victim is not someone who suffered a recognized legal injury. A victim is someone who believes the system was turned against the movement. That belief — that conviction of shared persecution — becomes the credential. A compensation structure that recognizes that credential has crossed into territory the constitutional order was specifically designed to prevent.
The Founders understood what they were doing when they gave Congress the power of the purse. They had studied republics. They had watched what happened when executives gained independent access to public money. The power to distribute resources is the power to create dependence, and a leader who can reward loyalty with public funds is building something that cannot remain a republic in any meaningful sense. The appropriations clause is not a technicality. It is load-bearing.
Note which scholars are most alarmed. Not partisans. People who have spent careers reading constitutional structure with professional precision. They recognize that systems built around grievance and compensation develop their own logic. Loyalty becomes financially meaningful. Victimhood becomes administratively valuable. Conflict becomes necessary — not because anyone plans it that way, but because the incentive structure requires an ongoing enemy to justify the ongoing compensation. The movement must remain under attack forever, because the identity and now potentially the financial architecture of the movement depend on sustained persecution.
This is not the story of one controversial fund. It is the story of what happens when executive authority, grievance politics, and public money begin to merge into a single operational structure. The courts may yet intervene. They may find standing problems and avoid the constitutional core. What they will not be able to do is un-create the precedent that was attempted — the demonstration that this mechanism exists and that an administration was willing to use it this way. Future operators will know what was tried. They will plan accordingly.
Every expansion of executive power eventually changes hands. That is not a partisan observation. It is the operating principle of constitutional history. The question this litigation will help answer is whether the boundary between executive settlement authority and congressional appropriations power is still a real boundary — or whether it has become, like so many others in this period, a principle that exists in the text and functions at the discretion of whoever holds power.
Thank you, Jack. I was already furious about this but admittedly, I hadn’t thought of it this way… the precedent.. It’s frightening.
There’s so much I’d miss if I weren’t here. There are days when I almost wish I didn’t see things so clearly but we NEED this. We need to understand just how dangerous what’s happening actually is. I’m grateful to have found you early in all this and to be here now.. even if sometimes it’s difficult.
I hope the former judges.. prosecutors.. and others are successful in stopping it. I hope the guardrails hold.
Excellent points, Jack. And chilling. The destruction of our system of checks and balances.
The monetization of grievance has another implication. Ruth Ben-Ghiat stated that payment to J6’ers from proceeds of this fund is in effect a down payment. Trump would be in, effect, creating a standing army of supporters loyal to Trump. Hitler, Mussolini and other strongmen had militias personally loyal to them.
.
Ahead are mid-term elections and a presidential election for a president with ever sinking poll numbers. Trump has already demonstrated he is unwilling to accept election results adverse to his occupancy of the White House. Should this theft of public funds be successful, it would facilitate another attempt that would dwarf J6.
Extrapolating Jack's thoughts out. I ask myself, why is Trump not worried about the mid term elections? If, by recent, he takes away the power of the purse from Congress, then Congress is essentially eliminated. I can come up with a group that is harmed by every program Congress comes up with, justifying Trump's (or really the Heritage foundation's) justification by placing every spending program under the Executive Branch.
Now, you have a dysfunctional Congress and a totally compliant Supreme Court, you have essentially terminated the Constitution. The result of that? In my opinion, we will have a second civil war. Hope I'm way off base but I fear I am not.
You know every disaster film ever made did not prepare us for this. Robot revolt? Got it. Alien invasion? Got it. Asteroid, flood, earthquake, reintroduction of dinosaurs? Check, check, check, check. Pervasive corruption in the highest seat of government? Nope. No one has written this screenplay, and if they did, it would never get produced. Too far-fetched.
I agree 💯that the real concern is the precedent that this would set if allowed to stand. But what about the opportunity cost? This involves so much money ...drained away from other uses. And this fund isn't the only drain of resources towards projects that are only for a limited audience of beneficiaries (see ballroom, arch, reflecting pool). The amount of money available for keeping the country in good stead is not endless!
If any of this money is dispersed, it needs to be followed. Trump does nothing for others. He will expect something in return for every dollar doled out.
I keep appealing to my nabobs that these events are against the law and they must uphold the law. It is near to impossible to get the entrenched magas to recognize common sense and truth when all they see is power and gold dust everywhere. I am incensed that on top of everything else, Trump demanded the Arts of War and Arts of Peace statues near Lincoln to be encrusted in his gaudy gold! Instead of the patina of bronze, which is appropriate and also artistic, they will now be 24K gold overlay paid for by tax dollars. UGH! More waste! More Fraud!
Good news, a huge group of judges and lawyers have started the process of impeachment against Pam Bondi in Florida to get her law license removed!
Jack is correct.
Note which instrument was used. Not a bill. Not a statute. Not a congressional authorization debated in committee and passed by elected representatives accountable to voters. A settlement — negotiated between a president and the executive agencies under his direct authority, resolving litigation the president himself initiated — producing a compensation structure worth $1.776 billion, administered through a mechanism the Judgment Fund that Congress created for an entirely different purpose and that, until now, almost nobody outside administrative law had reason to think about.
The Judgment Fund exists because government loses lawsuits. When it does, the money to satisfy those judgments has to come from somewhere, and requiring a new appropriations vote for every settled claim would make federal litigation administratively unworkable. It is supposed to be boring. It is supposed to be invisible. Critics now argue it has been used to do something it was never designed to do: create a large, politically directed compensation pool, controlled by figures aligned with the executive, available to claimants whose primary qualification is that they believe themselves to have been victimized by the government the president now runs. If courts allow it to function as described, future presidents will have been shown a model.
Jack is correct that the January 6th question is not a distraction from the main story. It is the main story made visible. When officials declined to fully exclude Capitol attack participants from potential eligibility, they revealed the operative definition of victimhood inside this framework. A victim is not someone who suffered a recognized legal injury. A victim is someone who believes the system was turned against the movement. That belief — that conviction of shared persecution — becomes the credential. A compensation structure that recognizes that credential has crossed into territory the constitutional order was specifically designed to prevent.
The Founders understood what they were doing when they gave Congress the power of the purse. They had studied republics. They had watched what happened when executives gained independent access to public money. The power to distribute resources is the power to create dependence, and a leader who can reward loyalty with public funds is building something that cannot remain a republic in any meaningful sense. The appropriations clause is not a technicality. It is load-bearing.
Note which scholars are most alarmed. Not partisans. People who have spent careers reading constitutional structure with professional precision. They recognize that systems built around grievance and compensation develop their own logic. Loyalty becomes financially meaningful. Victimhood becomes administratively valuable. Conflict becomes necessary — not because anyone plans it that way, but because the incentive structure requires an ongoing enemy to justify the ongoing compensation. The movement must remain under attack forever, because the identity and now potentially the financial architecture of the movement depend on sustained persecution.
This is not the story of one controversial fund. It is the story of what happens when executive authority, grievance politics, and public money begin to merge into a single operational structure. The courts may yet intervene. They may find standing problems and avoid the constitutional core. What they will not be able to do is un-create the precedent that was attempted — the demonstration that this mechanism exists and that an administration was willing to use it this way. Future operators will know what was tried. They will plan accordingly.
Every expansion of executive power eventually changes hands. That is not a partisan observation. It is the operating principle of constitutional history. The question this litigation will help answer is whether the boundary between executive settlement authority and congressional appropriations power is still a real boundary — or whether it has become, like so many others in this period, a principle that exists in the text and functions at the discretion of whoever holds power.
Jack is correct. File the date.
#HOLDFAST
Thank you, Jack. I was already furious about this but admittedly, I hadn’t thought of it this way… the precedent.. It’s frightening.
There’s so much I’d miss if I weren’t here. There are days when I almost wish I didn’t see things so clearly but we NEED this. We need to understand just how dangerous what’s happening actually is. I’m grateful to have found you early in all this and to be here now.. even if sometimes it’s difficult.
I hope the former judges.. prosecutors.. and others are successful in stopping it. I hope the guardrails hold.
#Holdfast
~Susan
Agree
Right there with you Susan. God bless Jack!
Excellent points, Jack. And chilling. The destruction of our system of checks and balances.
The monetization of grievance has another implication. Ruth Ben-Ghiat stated that payment to J6’ers from proceeds of this fund is in effect a down payment. Trump would be in, effect, creating a standing army of supporters loyal to Trump. Hitler, Mussolini and other strongmen had militias personally loyal to them.
.
Ahead are mid-term elections and a presidential election for a president with ever sinking poll numbers. Trump has already demonstrated he is unwilling to accept election results adverse to his occupancy of the White House. Should this theft of public funds be successful, it would facilitate another attempt that would dwarf J6.
Extrapolating Jack's thoughts out. I ask myself, why is Trump not worried about the mid term elections? If, by recent, he takes away the power of the purse from Congress, then Congress is essentially eliminated. I can come up with a group that is harmed by every program Congress comes up with, justifying Trump's (or really the Heritage foundation's) justification by placing every spending program under the Executive Branch.
Now, you have a dysfunctional Congress and a totally compliant Supreme Court, you have essentially terminated the Constitution. The result of that? In my opinion, we will have a second civil war. Hope I'm way off base but I fear I am not.
Grrrrrrr!!!
You know every disaster film ever made did not prepare us for this. Robot revolt? Got it. Alien invasion? Got it. Asteroid, flood, earthquake, reintroduction of dinosaurs? Check, check, check, check. Pervasive corruption in the highest seat of government? Nope. No one has written this screenplay, and if they did, it would never get produced. Too far-fetched.
Right?
This is a valuable breakdown and explanation of the dangers presented by this DOJ, “his DOJ” as you aptly describe.
I agree 💯that the real concern is the precedent that this would set if allowed to stand. But what about the opportunity cost? This involves so much money ...drained away from other uses. And this fund isn't the only drain of resources towards projects that are only for a limited audience of beneficiaries (see ballroom, arch, reflecting pool). The amount of money available for keeping the country in good stead is not endless!
Why people gotta be so mean?
If any of this money is dispersed, it needs to be followed. Trump does nothing for others. He will expect something in return for every dollar doled out.
I keep appealing to my nabobs that these events are against the law and they must uphold the law. It is near to impossible to get the entrenched magas to recognize common sense and truth when all they see is power and gold dust everywhere. I am incensed that on top of everything else, Trump demanded the Arts of War and Arts of Peace statues near Lincoln to be encrusted in his gaudy gold! Instead of the patina of bronze, which is appropriate and also artistic, they will now be 24K gold overlay paid for by tax dollars. UGH! More waste! More Fraud!
Good news, a huge group of judges and lawyers have started the process of impeachment against Pam Bondi in Florida to get her law license removed!
#HoldFast