WASHINGTON — The Justice Department confirmed Tuesday that it will create a $1.7 billion victim compensation fund for individuals convicted of crimes during the January 6 attack, funded by dropping a $10 billion lawsuit the president filed against the Internal Revenue Service. The consent decree appeared on a federal docket overnight with no press release and a two-page memo that described the arrangement as “a standard interagency settlement.”
Lawyers for Rancid Orange Fuck-Nuckle abandoned the suit against the IRS, which he wholly controls, after a federal judge signaled she might rule the case an unconstitutional farce. In exchange, the DOJ will tap its crime victims fund to issue checks directly to rioters, many of whom were convicted of assaulting police officers. The fund, created in 1984, typically finances rape crisis centers and funeral expenses for murdered law enforcement officers.
The architect of the settlement is Mark McCloskey, the Missouri lawyer who became a MAGA celebrity after waving an assault-style rifle at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. McCloskey and his wife were convicted on misdemeanor gun charges, later pardoned, and he now runs a thriving practice representing January 6 defendants. He has filed hundreds of claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act, arguing the government owes damages for the emotional distress of storming the Capitol.
“The government may have a duty to compensate those who felt compelled to interrupt a democratic process,” a Justice Department official wrote in a court filing that described the payments as a necessary cost of restoring public trust. The filing did not explain how raiding a fund for crime victims to pay perpetrators of a political riot restores anything.
A separate document revealed that McCloskey’s law firm stands to collect $340 million in legal fees from the settlement. The money would be wired directly from the same account that once paid for the burial of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after the attack.
