Reporter Scott MacFarlane said a federal judge just "dunked on" acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a four-page order declaring his word about a Trump slush fund cannot be trusted.
MacFarlane wrote on X that the order was "just remarkable" — and called it remarkable a second time for good measure. The judge, he said, "clearly doesn't trust the statements of the nation's top law enforcement official."
"Judge Brinkema absolutely dunks on the claims of the acting U.S. Attorney General," MacFarlane posted on X.
The order, signed Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, rules that a lawsuit over President Donald Trump's nearly $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" is still very much alive — and orders the Justice Department to respond by July 17.
The fund was set up to pay people who claim the government was "weaponized" against them — including, potentially, supporters charged over the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Critics call it an illegal slush fund.
The Justice Department had a simple way to kill the lawsuit: swear under oath that the fund is dead. Brinkema gave them a week to do it, but they refused.
"That the defendants have refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representations about the Fund not going forward is particularly concerning…" Brinkema wrote in the order, citing Blanche's own acknowledgment that the fund "remains 'important.'"
The judge pointed to a core problem: Blanche told Congress the fund was dead — but he was not under oath when he said it. When asked directly whether he would rescind the May 18 memo that created the fund's structure, Blanche was blunt.
"I'm not committing to putting anything in writing," he told lawmakers. "And I said it over and over again."
The Justice Department argued its promises to Congress and in court filings already carried "serious penalties of falsity." Brinkema disagreed — methodically. She reviewed the relevant statutes and court rules and found that none of them actually imposed the penalties the Department of Justice claimed. The voluntary-cessation doctrine — a legal principle that says defendants can't make a lawsuit go away just by promising to stop the challenged behavior — kept the case alive.
The Justice Department's answer is due July 17.