US President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, Thursday, May 21, 2026.
Al Drago Bloomberg | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Friday defended the Justice Department’s controversial new “Anti-Weapons Fund,” saying, “I sacrificed a lot of money” by allowing it to be implemented.
Trump’s comments came a day after the fund received strong support from Senate Republicans, and some lawmakers are promoting legislation that would prevent taxpayer money from being used for the $1.8 billion settlement pool.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Trump’s criminal defense attorney, said earlier this week he was creating a “law fund” as part of a settlement of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
Trump didn’t get any money from that place. But the fund is intended to compensate many of his supporters who say they were victims of prosecutorial harassment by the DOJ under the Biden administration.
And Trump and members of his family receive immunity from IRS enforcement actions related to their tax returns under the agreement.
“I sacrificed a lot of money to allow the newly announced anti-arms fund to go forward,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“I could have settled my case, including the illegal release of my Tax Returns and the equally illegal BREAK IN of Mar-a-Lago, in order to obtain great wealth,” Trump said. Instead, I’m helping others, who have been wronged by the corrupt, corrupt, and armed Biden Administration, finally get JUSTICE!”
Critics of the fund have called it a “money bag,” and dismissed the idea that members of the mob of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, those who are prosecuted for their actions can receive payment from it, even if they attacked the police that day.
Earlier Friday, several House Republican lawmakers defended the fund in interviews with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, when asked about the fund, said that Trump has been “one of the biggest abusers of weapons,” and that he is looking for “the right way and the use of tax dollars, as long as the guardrails are in place.”
But Arrington also said, “We have to have accountability measures and safeguards, so that it’s not a cesspool, a cesspool, where you give money to political allies who have no legitimate claims.”
“It has to be fair and objective … that’s why I think the Senate will find a way forward,” he said.
Those guards could come as part of the next settlement package, “or they could have a deal,” Arrington suggested.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said of the fund, “I think there is a need for it.”
Comer said Trump was a victim of “the law.”
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., asked about the settlement that led to the creation of the fund, said, “I wasn’t in the room, so I don’t know what the details are.”
“No one [knows] government weapons against him and his family better than Donald Trump,” said Emmer. “I suspect that any deal that is made, is fair on both sides.”
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., criticized Trump and Republicans for the DOJ fund and some of the president’s pet projects, including a new White House ballroom and a new arch in Washington, DC.
“You’re not going to have what we’ve seen displayed here this week, where we have the Republican Party and the president proposing $2 billion, a $2 billion presidential fund, and $75 billion to improve ICE that doesn’t require additional funding, not a dime from the American people,” Clark said on “Squawk Box.”
The Trump administration is “almost defiant, building ballrooms and arches,” Clark said.
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