While the future of President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is in doubt, his Department of Justice is already opening the door to alleged victims of government weaponization to file claims under an obscure 80-year-old law that grants the DOJ uncapped funds to settle with people who say they faced politically motivated prosecution.

The Wall Street Journal reports that DOJ officials have “emphasized” that they have the authority to settle with alleged victims as they see fit.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward on social media declared Tuesday, “We’re on it,” before deleting the post. He was responding to a post by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a top Trump ally, who suggested the government could use the 80-year-old law to compensate alleged victims.

“I am still of the firm belief that there are many victims of the weaponized Biden Justice Department throughout this country,” Graham wrote on social media. “To suggest nothing happened and that the Biden DOJ did not weaponize the law against Americans is inaccurate. However, creating a new system that is untested is problematic.”

“We have a legal system already in place for people to make claims against the government,” he added. “That does not need to be reinvented.”

Some Trump supporters who were prosecuted for actions related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol are working to file lawsuits against the government.

“This game just got started, and this is just strike one,” said former Trump policy adviser Michael Caputo, who served as the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Public Affairs. Caputo submitted the first claim from Trump’s anti-weaponization fund: $2.7 million. The WSJ did not specify the nature of Caputo’s claim.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the 80-year-old fund Federal Tort Claims Act “allows claims for damages against the government when it engages in wrongful actions or negligence that causes personal injury or property damage.”

Last Friday, nine now-pardoned January 6 defendants filed a lawsuit seeking payouts under the 1946 law, the Journal reports. They are alleging selective enforcement based on their support for Trump that was “orchestrated by people at the highest levels of the DOJ and FBI.”

One of the January 6 plaintiffs told the Journal that some charged in connection with the attack might have settled for less through Trump’s anti-weaponization fund, but now they are “playing hardball,” given the DOJ’s uncapped fund.

Independent voters have shifted “massively” against President Donald Trump, especially on the Iran war, and are now part of what CNN data analyst Harry Enten calls Trump’s “decaying coalition.”

Enten pointed to Wednesday’s House vote on a war powers resolution directing Trump to end U.S. military action in Iran without congressional authorization. Four Republicans crossed the aisle to join Democrats in what NPR called “the clearest rebuke yet of President Trump’s handling of the conflict.”

Majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans want the Iran ceasefire to hold, Enten reported — calling it a “rare trifecta” of cross-party consensus set against steep disapproval of the war.

“The most unpopular war at the start of a war that I could ever find, ever, has become even more unpopular,” Enten explained. “That’s what those Republicans in the House are seeing.”

“Net approval rating of the Iran war,” he continued. “At the start, it was underwater minus nine points. Now it’s down there with the Strait of Hormuz. Look at this: minus 23 points. This is a war that has become more unpopular even as President Trump and his administration has tried to sell it.”

“And among independents, it’s gone from 23 points underwater to get this: 40 points underwater with independents,” Enten continued. “So those Republicans who are, in fact, did not vote with the renegade Republicans, they are helping to put that Republican majority — which was already at great risk in the House — in even more risk.”

Turning to the need for a president to obtain congressional approval before going to war, Enten said, “63 percent overall are against the idea that, in fact, you can — the president could just go willy-nilly without congressional approval. How about independents? 72 percent, 72 percent. More than two in three independents are against the idea that the president can, in fact, use military force without congressional approval.”

“So the American people, independents very much with that House vote yesterday with the ideas, hey, the president actually has to come to Congress to use military force. And independents, especially.”

Enten noted that independents went from minus 23 points to minus 40 points on Trump’s military action in Iran.

“Independents, of course, have been such an important part of the president’s decaying political coalition,” Enten observed. “They were pretty much even in the 2024 election, and they have shifted massively against him, and especially on this war.”

Image via Reuters 

The Democratic base is split on where they want the party to go — left, center, or stay put — but the majority can agree on their dissatisfaction with the party’s direction, says CNN analyst Harry Enten.

Fewer Democrats are currently satisfied with their party than they were after President Joe Biden’s debate performance that led to him dropping his reelection bid, Enten noted.

Democratic voters’ “pissedoffness” Enten added on social media, “has never been higher with their own party in Congress.”

“Okay, how upset are they in Congress?” he asked.

Noting that 46 percent currently are satisfied with the Democratic Party, Enten reiterated that the majority are dissatisfied.

Looking specifically at Democrats’ net approval of congressional Democrats, Enten explained that after the shutdown in October of last year, congressional Democrats had a net approval rating of plus 22 percent.

“Today, though, look at that,” he said, pointing to a net approval rating of minus 9 points.

“That is an over 30 point drop, at the climb, right into the ocean, right there,” he said.

“And I will note it had never been negative. Democrats had always had a positive net approval rating of their own party in Congress in every Congress before this one.”

“Congressional Democrats are underwater with their own party, and that’s why I think these primaries are going to be so interesting, because they’re going to tell us, okay, which way do Democrats want their party to go?”

He said the “big problem” is “Democrats aren’t sure what direction they want their party to go.”

Nearly three in ten (28 percent) want the party to move to the left, he said. Less than one in five (18 percent) want the party to not move at all. And nearly half — 47 percent — want the party to move to the center.

“This is a party divided, where they’re not actually giving a clear message of where they want their party to go,” he noted.

Offering a note of caution to lawmakers in primary races, Enten said that “if all of a sudden, Democrats are actually going to move to the left — which is not what their party wants — that will actually upset the rest of the electorate.”

Enten said the “only thing” that unites the Democratic base right now is “they are very upset with Donald Trump, and I think the candidates who are able to actually capture that, that’s the candidates who are going to advance to the general election.”

Fewer Democrats (~46%) are satisfied with their party right now than they were with Biden as their nominee (53%) after the worst debate performance ever.

Dem voters “pissedoffness” has never been higher with their own party in Congress. Consistently negative ratings in Q-Pac. pic.twitter.com/fjwV95zrh1

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) June 3, 2026