Todd Blanche refuses to rule out payments to Jan. 6 rioters: 'I don't know'
Attorney General Todd Blanche refused to rule out the idea that Jan. 6 rioters could be paid by President Donald Trump's administration.
During a Sunday appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, Blanche was pressed by host Kristen Welker on whether the Trump administration would pay Jan. 6 rioters. Blanche has repeatedly said that the anti-weaponization fund, which critics worried would pay Jan. 6 rioters, is dead, but Welker asked if they could still get payments.
"You're saying you're not ever reviving it, but just to be very clear, can you guarantee that under your Department of Justice, anyone who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 will not receive one dime of taxpayer money if they file a claim against the federal government?"
"Anybody can file a claim against the federal government," Blanche said. "I'm not going to sit here on a news program and say whether a litigation that may or may not happen will result in money. I can't do that."
He then laid out a separate process through which Jan. 6 rioters could file a claim.
"There's a process that has been in place for decades for somebody that has been or a tort's been committed against them can seek redress," Blanche said. "Beyond that, I'm not going to comment."
Welker pressed Blanche for a clear answer on whether he would rule out the possibility of Jan. 6 rioters getting payments, which his answer sidestepped.
"So potentially they could get paid under another stream of government funding?" she asked.
"Well, I don't know," Blanche said. "Anybody who sues the federal government could get paid...I'm not going to comment on a hypothetical case."
Politico legal reporter Josh Gerstein quickly called out the non-answer in a post on X, and the Department of Justice responded via its DOJ Rapid Response account.
"Come on, Josh— you know better!" the DOJ wrote. "The Judgment Fund has been in place for decades...claims are made each day, on any number of issues."
It added, "It is completely unrelated to the dead [anti-weaponization] Fund. Even democrats have said repeatedly that the avenue for relief is the Judgment Fund."