A federal judge in Virginia on Friday extended her block on the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion compensation fund for individuals who believe they were victims of an alleged “weaponized” federal government.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s ruling extends the band-aid block she initially ordered on May 29 to prevent the Department of Justice from launching the taxpayer-funded $1.8 billion pay-out system, which critics refer to as a “slush fund.”

Brinkema requested the Department of Justice submit a sworn declaration by next week indicating it is not moving forward with the fund — and signed by both the acting attorney general and the treasury secretary. She indicated she would likely dismiss the case as moot if the administration submits the rescission in writing. If the DOJ does not provide the declaration, the legal challenge will likely continue.

“The Anti-Weaponization Fund presents an immediate and dire threat to our constitutional order and the authority of Congress,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., wrote in a brief they filed in the case, which Brinkema read aloud in court Friday.

“Indeed, among other purposes, the Fund is designed to compensate the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th,” the senators wrote. The some 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters President Donald Trump  pardoned upon his return to the White House in 2025 are among those most likely to profit from such a fund.

Trump’s Department of Justice established the fund as part of a settlement stemming from the president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. The account, every penny of which comes from taxpayer dollars, would establish a “lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization” to “seek redress,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the time of its announcement.

But a groundswell of opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill forced the Trump administration to back down. On June 2, Blanche announced at a congressional hearing “we’re not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Blanche’s abandonment of the fund did little to dissuade organizations that opposed the fund from pressing forward with a lawsuit to stop it. A a coalition of former Jan. 6 prosecutors and nonprofit organizations that brought the Virginia suit argued Blanche’s statements were not legally binding.

They also pointed to Trump’s continued public push for the fund after Blanche’s congressional testimony.

In one pre-taped interview with “Meet the Press” that aired June 7, Trump said, “I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do many other Republicans. You have to get it approved.” 

Brinkema expressed concern over Trump’s comments and Blanche’s refusal to commit to rescinding the fund in writing as reason for her decision on Friday. The president’s statements, she said, “carry a lot of weight” and represent a “pretty good indicator that there will be some incentive or motive to make it happen.”

Trump railed against Brinkema’s May 29 order that originally blocked the fund, calling her a “a radical leftist judge” in a post on Truth Social. The judge referenced that attack while speaking to an attorney for the DOJ during Friday’s arguments.

The Department of Justice has called for the case’s dismissal, arguing Blanche’s statement means there is no issue for the court to decide. The plaintiffs who brought the legal challenges to the fund have repeatedly pushed back on that assertion. 

In addressing the DOJ’s argument, Brinkema said the DOJ’s ability to voluntarily kill the fund does not usurp her authority to rule on the issue.

“[The Trump administration] should not be able to evade judicial review by temporarily altering behavior,” Brinkema said.

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A federal judge in Washington will again consider whether the Department of Defense has violated the First Amendment by implementing a policy that requires journalists to have an official escort at all times when reporting from the Pentagon. 

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman will hear arguments Friday in a second case brought by The New York Times, challenging another one of the Pentagon’s new restrictive press policies introduced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The matter before the court is the escort policy, which prohibits reporters from being anywhere on the Pentagon’s grounds without an official department escort. 

In a court filing, the Times calls the policy “retaliatory” and “unreasonable.” It argues that for decades, access to the Pentagon has enabled journalists to serve the interests of the press, the public and the Department of Defense without posing a security risk. 

The escort policy has one purpose, the Times says, which is “to restrict coverage of the Department and its leadership by independent journalists and news organizations, like [The New York Times], willing to publish stories that [the Department of Defense and its leadership structure] dislike.”

The Times alleges that this policy violates the First Amendment by making reporting from the Pentagon impossible by imposing unnecessary burdens on journalists. Under the escort policy, a journalist who wishes to ask an in-person question to an official must schedule an appointment, obtain an escort, ask the question and then return to the new reporter workspace, located in a separate building outside the main Pentagon structure. 

These new requirements hinder reporting by “cutting off the routine access and unplanned, spur-of-the moment discussions that have been long critical components of covering the Pentagon effectively,” according to the New York Times. 

The government contends that the policy seeks to protect military secrets and that journalists should not receive special treatment. “The First Amendment does not entitle — and has never entitled — all people an unfettered right, on terms they demand, to access sensitive government spaces or to obtain sensitive government information — especially in the context of national security,” the government argues in its brief. 

But credentialed journalists do have access to unrestricted parts of many government buildings without escorts. 

Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice and the Department of State all allow journalists to move freely in unrestricted parts of the buildings. And until the escort policy was introduced, the Pentagon did, too. 

This crackdown on reporters’ access to the Pentagon is the latest chapter in a saga that has been ongoing since Hegseth took control of the department. Last fall, the Pentagon introduced its new press policy, which placed restrictions on reporting unauthorized information, prompting The New York Times to file its initial lawsuit in December. Friedman, the same judge who is overseeing the new challenge, sided with the Times in March, finding the policy unconstitutional. 

The Pentagon almost immediately issued a new interim press policy. In addition to introducing the escort requirement, this policy closed the “Correspondents’ Corridor” — the in-house workspace for credentialed reporters — and relocated the press workspace to an annex facility outside the main Pentagon building. 

In April, Friedman found this new policy a violation of his court order and blocked the Pentagon from effectuating it. The Defense Department appealed that ruling, claiming that the policy was necessary to protect national security. Friedman wrote, “the Department has invoked slightly different language to achieve the same unconstitutional result.”

The Pentagon appealed, and a panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals partially paused Friedman’s order, allowing the escort policy to remain in effect while litigation continues. The appellate court found that the Pentagon had supported its argument that the escort policy furthers national security interests. That ruling prompted The New York Times to bring this new challenge, specifically targeting the escort policy. 

Friday’s hearing comes as President Donald Trump’s war with Iran is in its fourth month, with a sharp escalation in strikes exchanged this week followed by renewed claims that a deal was at hand.  

And just yesterday, the Pentagon endured an hourslong lockdown due to the apparent detection of a hazardous biological agent. While it was deemed a false alarm, if it had turned into a critical story, there was no major reporting presence on site, as a direct result of the restrictive press policies. 

Whether that policy will remain in effect, for now, is up to Friedman. He is expected to issue a ruling in the coming weeks. 

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