Washington (United States) (AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s Justice Department announced on Monday the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate political allies prosecuted under the Biden administration.

Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups immediately attacked the plan as a brazenly corrupt “slush fund” that would reward the Republican president’s loyalists with taxpayer money.

In exchange for the creation of the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” the Justice Department said Trump was dropping a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a leak of his tax returns.

Trump, his two eldest sons Eric and Donald Jr. and the Trump Organization filed a lawsuit against the tax-collecting agency in a federal district court in Florida in January seeking $10 billion in damages over the tax returns leak.

A former IRS contractor pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking the tax returns of Trump and other wealthy Americans to the media and received a five-year prison sentence.

The Justice Department, which is currently headed by Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, said the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was being created as part of a settlement in the IRS case.

“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Blanche said in a statement.

“As part of this settlement, we are setting up a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress,” the acting attorney general said.

The Justice Department said Blanche will appoint five people to oversee the fund and the Trumps “will receive a formal apology but no monetary payment or damages of any kind.”

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