by Kevin Killough
Two police officers who were at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, protests filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to stop payments from the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
President Donald Trump set up the fund to compensate those whom the administration believes received unfair treatment under the Biden Justice Department. Roughly 1,200 people were charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, as lawmakers attempted to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential win over Trump. Charges ranged from unlawful entry to sedition and assaulting a police officer.
Trump has pardoned everyone who has been federally charged.
The lawsuit also names acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The lawsuit argues that the fund is unconstitutional and illegal. It also claims that the fund will endanger the lives of the plaintiffs – Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges – who “defended the Capitol during the protests. The fund will, according to their complaint, encourage violence against the officers, and fund violent actions of “rioters, paramilitaries, and their supporters.”
“The Anti-Weaponization Fund will both compensate and empower the very people making those threats. Militias like the Proud Boys will use money from the Fund to arm and equip themselves. The Fund will grant their pasts acts of violence legal imprimatur. And, most chillingly, the Fund will signal to past and potential future perpetrators of violence against Dunn and Hodges that they need not fear prosecution; to the contrary, they should expect to be rewarded,” the lawsuit says.
Hodges is a Metropolitan Police Department officer, and Dunn (pictured above) is a former U.S. Capitol Police officer and a Democratic candidate in the House primary for Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, the Associated Press reported.
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Kevin Killough is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
Photo “Harry Dunn” by Harry Dunn for Maryland.
