OPINION:
President Trump’s anti-weaponization fund is officially dead. The final nail in the coffin was placed earlier this month, when a judge appointed by President Clinton blocked the initiative for good.
The ruling followed endless caterwauling from legacy media that the measure was a “slush fund” meant to pay off the president’s friends. This caused the White House to repeatedly explain the fund, even to Senate Republicans.
As usual, Mr. Trump needed reinforcements and instead got friendly fire.
In reality, the so-called slush fund was a genuine attempt by the Trump administration to help victims of the radical left’s weaponization of the federal government.
The president’s critics claim this weaponization does not exist. As usual, they are clearly wrong.
Mr. Trump’s eyes were opened on this issue during his first term, when he was relentlessly pursued by prosecutors over hallucinatory ties to Russia. The result? A $32 million investigation by Robert Mueller turned up no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
That hard-earned taxpayer money was spent so Democrats could follow along at home with their invisible-ink pens and detective hats. Although the probe resulted in a handful of convictions — many through perjury traps — it ensnared more than 330 people, most of whom had done nothing wrong.
Lies were proliferated, reputations were destroyed, and lives were ruined. Should the innocent not be compensated for these damages?
What about those swept up in Arctic Frost? The Biden administration’s ridiculously named dragnet was supposed to be yet another investigation into Mr. Trump. It ended up sweeping 92 conservative-leaning organizations and individuals, issuing costly subpoenas and prying into financial records.
This included the Republican National Committee and Turning Point USA, whose co-founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated last year.
Naturally, no substantive charges ever came out of the Arctic Frost obsession. Yet do the victims, forced to pay legal bills and security costs, not deserve restitution?
What of the Biden administration’s weaponizing of the FACE Act to target pro-life Christians? This was pure government-sponsored thuggery, complete with long-term surveillance, camera-ready arrests, jurors screened on the basis of their religion, flagrant coordination with pro-abortion groups and outrageously long sentences pursued by federal lawyers.
The Department of Justice later concluded in an internal review that the government had violated these defendants’ First Amendment rights. Dozens of pro-lifers were charged by President Biden’s henchmen. Where is their justice?
What of the wholesale weaponization of antitrust law during the Biden years? Spearheaded by socialist Lina Khan at the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission and Merrick Garland at the Department of Justice, the government went on a suing spree against American businesses for little reason other than that they were not in favor with the left.
At one point, 40% of all companies in the S&P market cap were under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission or the Justice Department. These are the same regulators who ultimately killed Spirit Airlines. They filed a lawsuit in 2023 to stop the budget carrier from merging with JetBlue — a lawsuit that a federal judge granted in January 2024, guaranteeing that Spirit Airlines would ultimately close its doors, as it did in May.
Untold numbers of jobs were lost to Mr. Biden’s antitrust crusades; millions of dollars were wasted. Again, where is the justice?
Every time the Democrats win the White House, they set about weaponizing the government against their political opponents. The Clinton White House improperly obtained hundreds of confidential FBI files on prominent Republicans. President Obama unleashed the IRS on conservative nonprofit groups. Mr. Biden continued the trend with gusto.
Now, Mr. Trump has reined in the left’s dogs of war — except that prominent Democrats are continuing their witch hunts through legislation in Congress and lawsuits before the courts. Worse, they are already promising to do the same thing again if they win in 2028.
Democrats have pledged to investigate Trump officials. Ms. Khan is in high demand among Democratic presidential hopefuls, suggesting more investigations into American companies.
There can be little doubt that, for decades, Democrats have been weaponizing the federal government against people they do not like. The only way forward is to ensure these victims receive the restitution they deserve. That is not a slush fund; it is justice.
• Michael Glassner, the president of C&M Transcontinental LLC, served as chief operating officer and deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President Inc. in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and as senior adviser on the 2024 campaign. He is one of the longest-serving executives in modern presidential campaign history and has held senior roles in seven presidential campaigns.
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