"I was diagnosed with a condition which would not give me enough time to complete my work for you," McCloskey revealed in a May 15 letter to clients. This stark admission had been conspicuously absent from his April 10 letter, in which he cited only vague "personal reasons" for stepping back.
But now McCloskey says the prognosis "is not as bleak as first indicated," and he's returning to represent the roughly 1,600 defendants charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. That came amid the possibility of a large potential windfall.
McCloskey pointed to reports of a possible "Weaponization Fund" as a key reason for his reversal. "There is a reported possible 'Weaponization Fund' which sounds a great deal like what we have been pushing for the last year," he wrote.
According to ABC News, Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for establishing a $1.7 billion compensation fund for allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, with Jan. 6 defendants explicitly among those eligible to collect.
The fund would draw from the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund and would be overseen by a five-member commission with sweeping, nearly unchecked authority. Trump himself would have the power to remove commission members without cause, and the commission would face no obligation to disclose how it hands out more than a billion dollars in taxpayer money, sources told ABC News.
Critics have already flagged the arrangement as an unprecedented use of public funds with little oversight — and some administration officials have privately raised ethical concerns. That hasn't dimmed McCloskey's enthusiasm. "Be advised that this is not over," he wrote to clients. "We need to remain vigilant and continue to push for a resolution while getting these cases ready to file as a backup plan."
"With God's help and your prayers, we can prevail!"
McCloskey had spent more than a year filing SF-95 federal tort claim forms on behalf of his Jan. 6 clients, trying to preserve their right to sue the government. He said he contacted "every significant member of this administration, from the cabinet level on down, including numerous U.S. Senators, Representatives, the Chairman of the Republican Party" — all in pursuit of a voluntary compensation program.
Trump has made little secret of his affection for the Jan. 6 defendants, whom he pardoned upon returning to office. "They were patriots as far as I was concerned," Trump told Newsmax last year. "They were treated very unfairly."
McCloskey's change of heart was met with mockery online.
"Jesus healed Mark McCloskey's terminal illness, just in time to collect his contingency fee," intrepid January 6 watcher SatireAP wrote on Friday.
"These people sure love to talk about the power of prayer when there's money involved," media consultant Shawn Bradley Witzemann observed.
