--- title: Vance Defends Possible DOJ Payouts to Jan. 6 Rioters Who Attacked Cops description: Vance and another top Trump official opened the door to Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police drawing money from the $1.8 billion fund canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/05/19/vance-defends-1-8-anti-weaponization-fund/ author: Nik Popli article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-05-19T22:54:44.583Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-19T22:54:45.477Z article:section: Politics og:title: Vance Refuses to Rule Out Payouts to J6ers Who Attacked Cops og:description: Vance and another top Trump official opened the door to Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police drawing money from the $1.8 billion fund og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/05/19/vance-defends-1-8-anti-weaponization-fund/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte336d6c7b1f09bf6/6a0cae1e23825d59856048fc/GettyImages-2277143161.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: GettyImages-2277143161.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Vance Refuses to Rule Out Payouts to J6ers Who Attacked Cops twitter:description: Vance and another top Trump official opened the door to Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police drawing money from the $1.8 billion fund twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte336d6c7b1f09bf6/6a0cae1e23825d59856048fc/GettyImages-2277143161.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Officials Decline to Rule Out DOJ Payouts to Jan. 6 Rioters Who Assaulted Police > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Lawmakers sound off on Trump's $1.7 billion 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' from deal to drop IRS lawsuit [Watch (HLS stream): Lawmakers sound off on Trump's $1.7 billion 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' from deal to drop IRS lawsuit](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0rTN7Miz.m3u8) (2:21)  _Published 2026-05-19. President Donald Trump has withdrawn his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) amid reports that he struck a deal with his own Justice Department to create a $1.7 billion fund to compensate political allies who claim they were wrongly targeted by the Biden Administration._  by [Nik Popli](https://time.com/author/nik-popli/)  ## Nik Popli Staff Writer May 19, 2026 10:54 PM UTC  Vice President JD Vance takes questions from reporters in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on May 19, 2026. Vice President JD Vance takes questions from reporters in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on May 19, 2026. Heather Diehl—Getty Images  by [Nik Popli](https://time.com/author/nik-popli/)  ## Nik Popli Staff Writer May 19, 2026 10:54 PM UTC In the wake of the Trump Administration launching a new [$1.776 billion fund](https://time.com/article/2026/05/18/trump-doj-anti-weaponization-fund-irs-lawsuit-settlement/) to compensate people it says were targeted by the “weaponization” of government, top officials on Tuesday declined to rule out payments to some of the Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police officers during the violent attack on the Capitol. Vice President J.D. Vance said the Administration would evaluate applications for compensation from defendants tied to the Jan. 6, 2021 siege on the U.S. Capitol on a “case-by-case basis,” even when pressed repeatedly at a White House briefing about people who were previously convicted of attacking law enforcement officers during the riot. “I don’t rule things out categorically when I know nothing about a person’s individual circumstances,” Vance said. “We do have people who are accused of attacking law enforcement officers. That doesn't mean that we're going to completely ignore their claims.” He added that “we’re not trying to give money to anybody who attacked a police officer” but his willingness to entertain such claims marked another step in the Administration’s effort to rehabilitate the image of the Jan. 6 rioters. “We’re trying to compensate people where the book was thrown at them, they were mistreated by the legal system,” he said. Earlier in the day, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche offered a similarly open-ended answer during a Senate hearing when asked whether members of groups like the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers could qualify for payments from the new fund. “Anybody in this country can apply,” Blanche said, adding that a commission would determine eligibility rules. “The commission will set the rules. That’s not for me to set.” The comments underscored how the Trump Administration has sought to reframe the largest criminal investigation in Justice Department history under the Biden Administration as a symbol of political persecution. The rioters themselves, including some convicted of brutal assaults on police officers, have been recast in the President’s rhetoric as patriots, political prisoners, and victims of a corrupt system. On his first day back in office, Trump granted sweeping clemency to nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, pardoning most defendants outright and commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers convicted of seditious conspiracy. The clemency extended not only to low-level offenders accused of trespassing or disorderly conduct, but also to people who had attacked officers with baseball bats, bear spray, flagpoles, crutches, and other weapons. More than 600 defendants were accused of assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers during the riot, and nearly 175 were accused of using dangerous or deadly weapons. The violence on Jan. 6 unfolded after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Trump’s 2020 election defeat. Rioters smashed through windows and police barricades, overwhelmed officers, and forced lawmakers to flee or shelter in place. Investigators spent years combing through thousands of hours of surveillance footage and digital evidence to identify participants in the attack. Trump has repeatedly described Jan. 6 as a “day of love” and argued that those targeted by law enforcement were persecuted rather than properly prosecuted. Even before Tuesday’s briefing, Vance had sent mixed signals about how he viewed violent Jan. 6 offenders. Before Trump issued his blanket clemency to the rioters in 2025, Vance said that anyone who assaulted a police officer on Jan. 6 “obviously” should not receive a pardon. "If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned, and there's a little bit of a gray area there, but we're very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law,” he said in a [Fox News interview](https://www.foxnews.com/media/jd-vance-trump-process-rectify-unfair-jan-6-prosecutions). “And there are a lot of people, we think, in the wake of January the 6th who were prosecuted unfairly. We need to rectify that." Now, as vice president, Vance is declining to foreclose the possibility that some of those same defendants could receive taxpayer-funded compensation. Lawmakers Sound Off on Trump's $1.7 Billion 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' “I’m not committing to giving anybody money or committing to giving no one money,” he said Tuesday. The new fund—formally called the “Anti-Weaponization Fund”—was announced Monday as part of an agreement resolving Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. The Administration says the money is intended to compensate people who suffered from “weaponization and lawfare” by the federal government and to provide financial settlements or formal apologies. The figure attached to the fund, $1.776 billion, appeared to reference the year of American independence. Blanche, who previously served as one of Trump’s personal defense lawyers, said the fund was necessary because “the machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American.” The arrangement has drawn fierce, widespread criticism, including from ethics watchdogs, and former Justice Department officials. Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, called the arrangement “an obvious abuse of power” during Tuesday’s hearing, accusing the administration of creating a system in which Trump’s appointees could direct federal money toward people in the President’s orbit. Critics have also pointed to the unusual structure of the settlement itself. By dropping his lawsuit against the IRS, Trump avoided judicial review of a formal settlement agreement and instead negotiated with officials in an administration he now controls. The fund will be overseen by a five-member commission appointed by Blanche, though the members can be removed by Trump. The Justice Department has yet to release detailed standards governing who qualifies for compensation or how claims will be evaluated. ## Transcript Forget settlement. There's no settlement because his original claim was utterly bogus and vacuous. Um, they shouldn't be settling for anything because there's no validity to his underlying cause of action. So really, the report should be Donald Trump is setting up a $1.7 billion political slush fund for the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and his other political lieutenants and hangers on. That's an absolute violation of congressional spending power. Congress never voted for $1.7 billion for him to give away to his friends. Um, that didn't happen, and we never would. If he thinks that we would vote for that, he submitted his a bill, which is how you get an appropriation in the United States government. So it's utterly fraudulent what they're doing. What about January 6th, the rioters, should they be eligible for this? It depends on the circumstances. Give me an example again. Do you think. They'll they'll get to the bottom of it. I'm sure I'm not going to try to get ahead of the people that will be analyzing this, but I think it's about time that we stepped up and address the fact that the Biden administration dramatically weaponized the DOJ and law enforcement across the nation. And is this. Having been a victim of it myself, having been a victim myself of Arctic Frost, I can say this, okay, the Biden administration needs to be held to account and everyone that colluded with them, whether they be in the government or whether they be private sector participants like Verizon, should be held to account. I mean, the judge in this case basically said this is corrupt. The judge said this isn't a real lawsuit because Trump is just suing himself. And if he gets away with it with this slush fund from the IRS, he's going to do it everywhere. He'll sue every federal agency with some bogus bullshit claim. He'll settle out of court for billions of dollars, and that money will be used by him to try to curry favor and gain political influence. We've never, ever seen anything like this before. I get it that people, you know, don't know what a big number is anymore, but $1.7 billion, that's a lot of money. That's your taxpayer money. You worked hard for that money. And that money is now going into a political slush fund for the president to give to January 6th rioters to hand out to his political allies around the country. 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