On Thursday, The Federalist posted an article about President Trump’s proposed 1776 Fund, which some Congressmen and some liberal judges are trying to block.
The article reports:
The Trump v. IRS settlement announced May 18 created a $1.776 billion compensation pool — already dubbed the “1776 Fund” — to provide redress for victims of the political weaponization of our government institutions. Drawn from the U.S. Treasury’s permanent Judgment Fund, the money will compensate Americans who believe they were targeted for political, personal, or ideological reasons. The fund is open to any U.S. person or entity with no partisan test, though President Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization are explicitly barred from payouts. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has described it as a mechanism to hear claims from those subjected to “lawfare and weaponization” by the prior administration.
As the fund is being discussed, many of us are starting to realize the depth and scope of the Biden administration’s use of the government to destroy its political opponents.
The article notes:
The scale of the targeting is now public. The Senate Judiciary Committee has revealed that in then-Special Counsel Jack Smith’s “Arctic Frost” operation 197 secret subpoenas were issued to 34 individuals and 163 businesses seeking records on at least 430 Republican individuals and entities. Targets included election integrity analysts, private citizens, elected officials, and attorneys. Many subpoenas carried nondisclosure and gag orders, so victims often learned years later they had been placed under surveillance.
…The roughly 430 Republican individuals and entities targeted in the Arctic Frost operation were placed under secret subpoenas and gag orders without their knowledge, often only learning years later that they had been swept up in the dragnet. Parallel civil litigation often amplified the toll. Defendants in cases like Fair Fight v. True the Vote and parallel voter-challenge lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Michigan faced massive defense costs and uncertainty while the Biden DOJ actively supported the opposing side. Those harms — financial, professional, and physical — cannot be dismissed as collateral damage. They are the predictable result of weaponizing government levers of power against lawful activity.
The article concludes:
Democrats established and defended the rules that allowed expansive use of the Judgment Fund. Republicans are now using those same rules to compensate victims of the weaponization those rules enabled.
Restitution today is necessary. Prevention tomorrow is imperative. Government power must never again be turned on lawful private citizens doing the work of democracy — challenging voter rolls, researching election integrity, or petitioning officials for redress of grievances. Only then will the machinery of justice serve all Americans equally.
Equal justice under the law used to be an American principle. It needs to be re-established.