By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - Since President Donald Trump's administration announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund for Americans deemed to be victims of political "weaponization," January 6 Capitol riot defendants and other Trump allies have scrambled to figure out how to get their share.
Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy over the January 6, 2021 riot, said he planned to apply to the fund, assuming he could get between
$2 and $5 million.
"I'm not greedy," Tarrio said. "But my life was all fucked up because of this."
Trump pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 defendants last year. Some have now begun to calculate the cost of their prosecution, jail time and businesses lost in the hope of compensation for what they regard as abuses by the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden.
Peter Ticktin, an attorney representing more than 400 January 6 defendants, said the fund may not be enough.
"People lost multi-million dollar businesses while they were locked up," he said. "I don’t think the DOJ is ready for us yet."
Trump also suggested the fund may be too small. "You're talking about peanuts," he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. "It destroyed the lives of many, many people."
Democrats and some Republicans have questioned the legality of the fund, as well as a part of the settlement "forever barring" the IRS from auditing past tax claims by Trump, his relatives and his businesses.
Two police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from Trump supporters on January 6, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to halt the compensation fund, which they described as a "taxpayer-funded slush fund" for Trump followers who engaged in violence.
U.S. acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers on Tuesday that even people who assaulted police on January 6 would not be barred from receiving money.
Tarrio, for his part, thinks those who assaulted police should get their share.
"The Justice Department overprosecuted for political gain," he said. "So everyone deserves to get money."
In a Wednesday letter, Democratic Representatives Jamie Raskin and Richard E. Neal asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Blanche and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, who negotiated the settlement, whether individual awards would be capped and what reports would be made public.
"Never in American history has a President pursued corruption this brazenly or on such a colossal scale," they wrote.
Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said on Wednesday he would try to block the fund through spending-bill amendments, though he acknowledged the issue might have to be resolved separately.
Ticktin, the January 6 lawyer, said he plans to file hundreds of claims once the Justice Department creates the application process and the attorney general appoints the five-member commission overseeing the fund. He said he suggested the idea to Trump, his high school classmate, in a March email, but doesn't know if that had any impact on the creation of the fund.
Some January 6 defendants praised the Justice Department for adopting terms they have long used — including "lawfare," "weaponization" and "victims" — and cast the fund as payback for years of injustice.
"Now liberals wanna cry about righting the wrong, too bad," wrote Jennie Carso-Heinl, who pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, on X. "Justice is coming."
At least one Trump ally has already made a formal request: Michael Caputo, a former administration official, asked Blanche for $2.7 million in "restitution" over investigations by the Biden administration and special counsel Robert Mueller.
Some Democrats have floated applying too, arguing that Trump's Justice Department has pursued flimsy political cases against them. Blanche told lawmakers Tuesday the fund could pay members of both parties.
Former FBI Director James Comey, twice indicted since Trump began his second term, said on CNN that he has considered applying.
"It's to compensate people who've been targeted by the Justice Department for, they say, personal, political or ideological reasons," Comey said. "So I'm guessing I'll be in line."
For some Trump supporters, though, the fund may not go far enough.
Barry Ramey, a Proud Boys affiliate convicted of attacking police officers, said he is unsure whether to apply because taking money could jeopardize his claim against the Bureau of Prisons.
"My commitment to justice is not about the money," he said. "I want to show they acted illegally."
But if he could secure $2 million, he said, he might reconsider.
(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Editing by Michael Learmonth and Alistair Bell)
