WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s creation of a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is illegal and must be dissolved immediately, two police officers who were injured on Jan. 6, 2021, demanded in a lawsuit against the Justice Department on Wednesday.

The officers, former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, allege the fund will directly finance far-right extremists and paramilitary groups who were involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and violates the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on the U.S. assuming or paying any debt or obligation “incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” They also allege that it violates various statutes laid out in the Administrative Procedure Act, making the actions of the government officials involved illegal.

“The pardons that Donald Trump gave to the insurrectionists, it forgave them. It was saying ‘thank you for doing that for me.’ Now these payments? These are rewarding them and creating an incentive now,” Dunn told HuffPost by phone on Wednesday.

Trump, who previously pardoned nearly 1,600 rioters, has been floating the idea of compensating Jan. 6 rioters since at least March of last year and he has routinely referred to rioters as “very great people” or “patriots” who were “treated very unfairly.” The Justice Department unveiled the Anti-Weaponization Fund this week as part of a settlement agreement President Donald Trump struck with the DOJ to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.

According to the agreement, the fund — which a former Justice Department official told HuffPost appears to be “patently unlawful” — will consider payouts to anyone who can “assert at least one legal claim stating that the claimant was a victim of lawfare and/or weaponization” or to anyone who spent time “in prison or federal custody as a result of lawfare and weaponization from ‘any source.’”

In their lawsuit, Dunn and Hodges emphasize that even five years after the insurrection at the Capitol, death threats and harassment by Trump supporters, far-right extremists and Jan. 6 conspiracy theorists are still flowing. They say that Trump’s pardons, which included Proud Boys and Oath Keepers convicted of seditious conspiracy, have reinvigorated threats against them and their families.

The Anti-Weaponization Fund will only fuel those fires, Dunn and Hodges argue.

A litany of Jan. 6 rioters have been charged with alleged violent behavior since Trump pardoned them, the lawsuit highlights, such as Edward Kelley, who conspired to murder FBI agents who investigated him and was sentenced to life in prison, or Christopher Moynihan, who pleaded guilty to threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

“At least 33 pardoned insurrectionists to date have drawn new criminal charges, ranging from illegal gun possession and assault to kidnapping and rape,” the lawsuit states.

In the last year, the lawsuit notes, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to serve 18 years in prison, vowed that “the people who did this, they need to feel the heat.” Tarrio also allegedly trailed and filmed Dunn and Hodges at a conference last February, the lawsuit points out, and “taunted” them. (The conference was disrupted when a bomb threat was called in by someone identifying themselves as “Enrique T”; Tarrio denied making the threat.)

Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, celebrated his pardon online by declaring: “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!! NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!” And Ivan Raiklin, a conservative activist and Jan. 6 conspiracy theorist who frequently attends congressional hearings where Jan. 6 officers are present and clashes with them, put both Dunn and Hodges on a “retribution list.”

Dunn said he has no reason to believe the fund wouldn’t heap benefits on these same people now. And that’s a problem for every American.

“These groups, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, they actively recruit members. They do fundraisers. They do events. They sell merchandise. All to further their mission, whether it’s recruiting more violent people, hiring lawyers or stockpiling ammo and firearms. The pardons made them non-felons, so they could continue to own and buy guns,” Dunn said. “Let’s be real, do we think they aren’t going to stockpile their organizations now with these large potential payments coming out?”

Oath Keepers convicted of seditious conspiracy, in fact, brought a huge arsenal of weapons to Virginia ahead of Jan. 6 for a “quick reaction force” and spent nearly $20,000 on rifles and ammo.

The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.

Brendan Ballou, Dunn and Hodges’ attorney, told HuffPost Wednesday the fund is “stunningly, blindingly illegal.”

“If allowed to continue, it will fund insurrectionists, militias, and paramilitaries that are loyal to the president but unaccountable to the rule of law. To protect their safety and our democracy, our clients are suing to stop that from happening,” Ballou said.

For the moment, Dunn and Hodges are the only Jan. 6 police officers suing to stop the fund, but Ballou said a class-action option hasn’t been ruled out for the future. Some 140 officers were assaulted on Jan. 6.

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