CNN’s Jake Tapper appeared taken aback when presented with the ways in which President Donald Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” may be used in the future.
The Justice Department confirmed the fund’s establishment on Monday as part of a settlement reached in Trump’s $10 billion private lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. In a nod to the U.S.’s declaration of independence from Great Britain 250 years ago, the fund will receive $1.776 billion that can be used to pay out “victims of lawfare and weaponization,” according to a press release.
On Monday’s installment of CNN’s “The Lead,” Tapper spoke with MeidasTouch chief Washington correspondent Scott MacFarlane, who broke down why Trump’s opponents have likened the fund to a “personal rewards program” that will be used to financially compensate the president’s allies, including those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and have since been pardoned.
“Dozens of people pardoned by Trump so far who could be eligible are convicted fraudsters. They tend to make misuses of money,” MacFarlane explained. “There’s one Jan. 6 case in particular, post-pardon, a man from Florida was arrested again in recent months convicted of molestation. According to the police report we reviewed, Jake, that defendant tried to silence the victim by promising him future Trump reparations money that he was expecting from a fund just like this. Some of the Jan. 6 defendants … knew something like this was coming.”
“That’s so sinister and awful,” Tapper noted.
Though MacFarlane didn’t identify the Jan. 6 defendant by name, he appeared to be referring to Andrew Paul Johnson, who in March was sentenced to life in prison for molesting two children. Investigators found that the 45-year-old had told one of the victims that he expected to be compensated for being a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant and would name the victim as a beneficiary.
Trump’s fund has, not surprisingly, drawn the ire of many prominent Democrats, who have pledged that Republicans who support the scheme will pay a political price.
While most GOP members have kept mum on the fund thus far, MacFarlane said it was “a political albatross” for Trump’s party.
“If I handed you, Jake, copies of every supportive triumphant statement from Republicans backing this fund today, you would be holding no papers in your hand,” he told Tapper. “This is like a rotten egg salad sandwich politically for Republicans so far.”