WASHINGTON — Mike Pence was in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when the mob came for him. Now, four years later, he finds himself demanding that the Trump administration not pay the people who were there.
Pence publicly called on President Donald Trump to abandon the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund on Sunday, describing the prospect of compensating January 6 rioters as deeply offensive and urging the administration to drop the idea entirely. The former vice president’s intervention has sharpened what was already an unusually bitter intra-party dispute — one that has now spread from Senate conference rooms to the federal judiciary.
“People that assaulted police officers on Jan. 6, and vandalized our Capitol should not get one dime of taxpayer money from that fund or anywhere else,” Pence said, appearing on CBS News’ Face the Nation. He added that he had been heartened by the number of Senate Republicans willing to speak out, a list that has since grown to include Senators Bill Cassidy, Thom Tillis, and Mitch McConnell.
The fund at the center of the dispute was created by the Department of Justice earlier this month as part of a settlement of a $10 billion lawsuit Trump brought against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns during his first term. Under the settlement’s terms, the DOJ agreed to establish the $1.776 billion fund to issue payouts and formal apologies to individuals who claim the federal government unlawfully targeted them.
The problem, critics across the Republican Party quickly realized, is that the definition of victimized is elastic enough to include those convicted in connection with the Capitol riot. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio — who was released in January 2025 while serving a 22-year sentence — is among those who have reportedly expressed interest in submitting a claim. That single fact transformed what the administration framed as a corrective to Biden-era prosecutorial abuse into a liability that no amount of messaging has been able to contain.
The fund’s rollout has already paralyzed parts of the Republican legislative agenda. Senate GOP leaders were forced to scrap votes on an immigration enforcement funding package after the weaponization fund consumed a heated conference meeting. The episode revealed that the fractures in the caucus run deeper than the public statements alone suggest.
On Friday, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia temporarily blocked the Trump administration from taking any further action to create, fund, or disburse money from the Anti-Weaponization Fund. The two-page order directed the DOJ, the Treasury Department, and other senior administration officials to halt operations entirely while a legal challenge filed by a former federal prosecutor and a California university professor proceeds. A Nebraska Republican broke with Trump over the same fund at a contentious town hall last week, underscoring how widely the backlash has reached. A hearing has been set for June 12.
The plaintiffs — represented by Democracy Forward and Common Cause — include Andrew Floyd, a former DOJ attorney who prosecuted January 6 cases before being dismissed in June 2025, and Joseph Caravello, a professor acquitted in April after being charged with felony assault for protesting an immigration raid. Their lawsuit alleges the fund violates First and Fifth Amendment protections and exceeds Congress’s appropriations authority. Since its inception, this fund has been on a collision course with the United States Constitution, the complaint states, as CNN reported.
The DOJ has defended the fund’s legality, saying the program is supported by ample precedent, including Obama-era settlements, and pledging it would not allow the policy preferences of judges to interfere with its efforts to provide restitution to victims of what it calls lawfare. The White House referred reporters to the DOJ.
Pence, whose relationship with Trump has remained strained since the former president pressured him to block the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory, drew a careful distinction on Sunday. He said the DOJ retains the authority to settle individual cases where rights had been violated — and welcomed a seven-figure settlement the department reached that week with a pro-life family targeted during the Biden years. What he rejected is a centralized, opaque fund with no apparent mechanism to screen out those convicted of violent crimes.
He also said he had seen evidence the administration had been whitewashing January 6, citing a White House anniversary post that he said appeared to blame Capitol Police for the riot. “I’ll never minimize what happened on January 6,” Pence said.
What the administration intends to do with the fund following Judge Brinkema’s order — and whether the June 12 hearing produces a longer-term injunction — remains to be seen. The DOJ has not committed to withholding fund transfers beyond June 19, according to the court order itself. Whether the Senate Republican revolt will be enough to force the administration’s hand is the question that neither Pence nor anyone else has been able to answer.
—Inputs from Sputnik.
