Jan. 6 Officers Who Were Beaten by Rioters Sue to Block $1.776B Fund That Would Pay Their Attackers

On May 20, 2026, two police officers who were beaten defending the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, filed the first known legal challenge to Trump's $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" — the taxpayer-funded slush fund created to reimburse the president's allies, including the people who attacked them.

The plaintiffs

• Harry Dunn — former U.S. Capitol Police officer who was subjected to racial slurs and physical assault while defending the Capitol. He is now running for Congress in Maryland.
• Daniel Hodges — active Metropolitan Police Department officer, famously caught on video being crushed in a doorway by rioters, screaming in pain as the mob pressed against him

These are not political commentators. These are the men who physically stood between the mob and the members of Congress the mob was trying to reach. More than 140 officers were injured that day. Dunn and Hodges are suing to stop the government from paying the people who did it.

The defendants

The suit names President Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (Trump's former personal attorney), and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

What the lawsuit says

The officers' complaint, filed with the Public Integrity Project, calls the fund "the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century" and states:

"The fund, styled the 'Anti-Weaponization Fund,' is illegal. No statute authorizes its creation, the settlement on which it is premised is a corrupt sham, and its design violates the Constitution and federal law."

The legal arguments

1. 14th Amendment violation: Section 4 of the 14th Amendment — adopted after the Civil War — states that "neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States." The officers argue that paying Jan. 6 rioters violates this provision directly. The amendment was written for exactly this scenario: to prevent the government from rewarding people who attacked it.
2. No statutory authority: No federal statute authorizes the creation of the fund or the five-member commission that will distribute its money. The DOJ invented both from nothing.
3. The settlement is a sham: The lawsuit calls Trump's $10 billion IRS lawsuit a "Potemkin" case — the president settled a lawsuit with himself to create a fund he controls. It was not a genuine legal dispute; it was a mechanism to access Treasury money without congressional approval.
4. Administrative Procedures Act: The fund's creation was arbitrary, capricious, and made without the notice-and-comment rulemaking the law requires.

The safety argument

Dunn and Hodges make a chilling additional claim: the fund endangers their lives. Both officers have received ongoing death threats since they spoke publicly about Jan. 6. The lawsuit states that the fund "encourages those who enacted violence in the President's name to continue to do so" and warns that "militias like the Proud Boys will use money from the fund to arm and equip themselves."

The fund doesn't just reward past violence — it incentivizes future violence by demonstrating that acting on Trump's behalf has financial upside and no lasting consequences.

What the administration says

Acting AG Todd Blanche — who was Trump's personal defense attorney before becoming the nation's top law enforcement officer — told a Senate panel that Jan. 6 defendants aren't automatically getting payouts: "Does it mean they're going to get money? No. It just means they are allowed to apply." He declined to rule out payouts to those who assaulted police officers, saying he would "encourage the commissioners to take everything into account."

Translation: the pardoned rioters who beat 140 police officers can apply for taxpayer money, and the man deciding whether they get it is the president's former personal lawyer.

What the lawsuit seeks

• A declaration that the fund is unlawful
• An injunction blocking implementation
• Reversal of any payments already made

The congressional response

Democrats introduced the "No Taxpayer-Funded Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2026" and moved to subpoena Blanche, Bessent, and Associate AG Stanley Woodward (who signed the settlement). The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee rejected the subpoenas on a party-line vote.

What this means

The men who were beaten defending democracy are now in court trying to stop the government from paying the men who beat them. The fund has no statutory basis, no congressional authorization, no transparency requirements, and is overseen by a commission the president controls. It was created by settling a lawsuit the president filed against himself, funded by Treasury money that bypasses Congress, and could pay Proud Boys and Oath Keepers convicted of seditious conspiracy — all of whom Trump already pardoned.

The 14th Amendment argument is the most devastating: the framers who wrote it had just fought a civil war. They knew that future governments might try to reward those who attacked the republic. They wrote a constitutional prohibition against it. The question before the court is whether that prohibition means anything when the president is the one doing the rewarding.