MIAMI — The Justice Department on Friday evening told a federal judge it is appealing the July ruling that shredded the legal scaffolding for President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund — even after Attorney General Todd Blanche repeatedly told Congress and the public the fund was dead.

In a notice to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter said DOJ is taking her July 13, 2026, order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Democracy Docket reported. Mediaite, citing Politico’s Josh Gerstein, published DOJ’s language: defendants appear “solely for the purpose of noticing their appeal” from that July order, “reserving all rights and waiving nothing.”

Williams found that Trump and his two eldest sons’ $10 billion suit against the IRS and Treasury was “improper” and brought to win judicial cover for an extraordinary settlement with DOJ. As part of that deal, DOJ had planned a $1.776 billion fund to pay people claiming they were victims of “weaponization” and “lawfare,” while other terms sought to shield Trump, his family, and businesses from IRS audits — protections Democracy Docket said remain in place.

The judge wrote that Trump effectively controlled both sides of the case, rendering it “non-adversarial, collusive, and jurisdictionally improper.” She referred Trump personal attorney Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar and ordered her ruling sent to New York’s attorney discipline authorities regarding Blanche. McCotter’s Friday filing was the first time DOJ formally appeared in the lawsuit, Democracy Docket reported — after Williams had already blasted the department for sitting out a suit against itself.

Blanche’s confirmation path nearly cracked over the fund. Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) threatened to block him unless it was scrapped. On Aug. 2 Blanche posted that DOJ was updating the May IRS settlement and that the fund was dead — language that unlocked those senators’ votes, Mediaite noted. Friday’s appeal puts those assurances back under a spotlight: whatever Blanche told the Hill, DOJ is still fighting Williams’s findings in Atlanta.

It is unclear exactly what relief DOJ wants on appeal. Williams did not formally erase the executive-branch settlement, but her collusion findings created a record others can use to attack it. Separately, a Virginia federal judge last week ordered the government to identify who devised the fund, Democracy Docket reported. A settlement engineered so the executive can sue itself and mint a political slush fund is the kind of concentrated power play that does not get healthier when the department that was supposed to defend the United States shows up late — only to appeal the rebuke.

Sources