Lawyers challenging the Trump administration’s plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people claiming to have been unfairly prosecuted by the government expressed deep skepticism on Tuesday that the proposal was truly dead, even though the Justice Department has repeatedly vowed to drop the measure.
One set of lawyers, representing the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed court papers questioning the department’s trustworthiness and doubling down on their request to a federal judge in Washington to stop the fund from being set up.
A second set of lawyers, representing a former prosecutor who was fired by the Trump administration after working on the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, asked a federal judge in Virginia to force the Justice Department to answer the critical question of whether the White House had “actually abandoned” its plans to create the fund.
The twin moves underscored the lingering doubts that have surrounded the Justice Department’s promises that the fund will indeed be killed. Its fate has become a political flashpoint for the White House and continues to stir controversy both in the courts and in Congress — in large part because of concerns that it could be used to make payouts to the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The two filings came as the judges overseeing the cases were poised to hold hearings this week over whether to put the fund on hold.
Judge Richard J. Leon, who is handling the case brought by the watchdog group, often known as CREW, is set to hear arguments on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Washington. The other judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, has already issued an order temporarily freezing the fund and — at least for now — is scheduled to hold her own hearing on Friday in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va.
Both sets of lawyers said they were confused by what might happen with the fund, given that President Trump appeared last week to contradict assertions made by his own Justice Department, suggesting that he favored keeping it in place.
The lawyers also noted that while senior department officials said that no steps had been taken at the moment to move the fund forward, they declined to offer assurances that similar measures would not be taken in the future.
The filings were the latest reflection of the puzzling muddle that has surrounded the future of the fund, which emerged as part of an agreement to settle a $10 billion lawsuit that Mr. Trump had filed against the I.R.S., accusing the agency of not doing enough to stop a contractor from leaking his tax information in 2019.
The administration and its allies in Congress have taken different, and sometimes contradictory, positions on its future in the past several days.
Last week, for example, some Republican senators offered fierce criticism of the fund, only to eventually reject efforts to kill it, as lawmakers voted on a bill to finance Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging immigration crackdown. Two members of the House — one Republican and one Democrat — are now seeking to use a special measure known as a discharge petition to force a separate vote on the fund.
But lawyers for CREW remained unpersuaded by either Mr. Blanche’s remarks or the department’s written assurances, telling Judge Leon that the administration had a track record of being deceitful in its handling of Mr. Trump’s lawsuit.
“There is ample reason to be skeptical of defendants’ representations,” the lawyers wrote. “Through their sham settlement of Trump v. I.R.S. and unlawful creation of the fund, defendants conducted what may be the single most corrupt act of self-dealing by any administration in American history.”
CREW’s lawyers reminded Judge Leon that the deal establishing the fund explicitly stated that its terms could be modified only by a “written agreement” between administration lawyers and Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers. No such agreement has ever been made public, they said.
Lawyers for the former prosecutor, Andrew Floyd, took a slightly different approach, asking Judge Brinkema to delay the hearing scheduled for Friday and force the administration to first answer questions about its plans for the fund.
The lawyers noted that Mr. Trump himself has said that he still loves the idea and believes it is important, casting doubt on the Justice Department’s assertions that it will not be put in place.
“It is impossible for plaintiffs or the court to credit defendants’ representations that the fund is ‘now not going forward,’ which could simply mean that defendants are not currently making advancements on the fund,” the lawyers wrote.
www.nytimes.com