The $1.7 Billion Question
A reported compensation fund for Trump allies has not been approved, but it raises old concerns about public money, political loyalty, and the rule of law.
On May 15, 2026
The New York Times reported that the Trump administration is considering a $1.7 billion fund to compensate President Donald Trump’s allies and others who say they were harmed by Justice Department investigations during the Biden administration.
BUT… this is still not finalized or approved…
The fund could compensate people in Trump’s orbit who incurred legal costs during federal investigations, and it could potentially extend to some of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The administration has reportedly discussed modeling the program, in part, on past federal settlement funds, with possible payments through the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, a standing source of federal money used to pay certain legal judgments and settlements.
A republic depends on the idea that public money is held in trust. The taxes paid by us, we the people, are not the personal purse of a president, a party, or a political movement.
They’re supposed to fund the public business of the country: roads, courts, veterans’ care, disaster relief, schools, safety, and the basic machinery of self-government.
In the Gilded Age,
reformers challenged the spoils system, in which government jobs and favors were treated as rewards for political loyalty.
After President James A. Garfield was assassinated in 1881 by a disappointed office-seeker, Congress passed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act to begin separating public service from personal patronage. It was an imperfect reform, but it rested on a basic principle: government should not be treated as a prize to be distributed among friends.
The Times reports that the fund is connected to Trump’s broader legal claims against the federal government, including a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and separate claims against the Justice Department. But the legal posture is unusual because Trump now controls the very executive branch agencies involved in responding to those claims. A federal judge has already questioned whether the IRS lawsuit can proceed when the president effectively controls both sides of the dispute.
The person seeking compensation also controls the government that may decide whether to pay.
Framers didn’t imagine virtue as a sufficient guardrail.
They built a system of divided powers because they knew that ambition, loyalty, and self-interest could distort public office. Courts, Congress, inspectors general, independent prosecutors, civil service protections, and public records laws all developed from the same understanding: power requires oversight.
This reported fund is not JUST about January 6 defendants, or Trump allies, or one lawsuit against the IRS.
but whether the machinery of government can be used to turn grievance into payment. And about whether legal accountability can be recast as victimhood when the people involved are politically useful to those in power and if taxpayers may be asked to finance a story in which the president’s allies are not defendants, targets, witnesses, or subjects of investigation, but injured parties entitled to public compensation.
None of this means the proposal will become policy… it hasn’t been approved.
The details remain uncertain & this is still developing.
In a democracy, the rule of law is not proved by how the government treats its friends.
It is proved by whether the law can remain steady when powerful people ask it to bend.
Sources and further reading
The New York Times | “Trump Administration Weighs $1.7 Billion Fund for Allies Investigated Under Biden”