The Department of Justice's newly established compensation fund for victims of governmental overreach has received an unexpected category of applicants: people who claim Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, was the one who weaponized federal power against them.
The fund, created by executive order in early 2026, was pitched as a remedy for Americans who suffered under what the administration characterized as the Biden Justice Department's politically motivated prosecutions. The original beneficiaries were meant to be January 6th defendants, Trump allies caught up in various investigations, and others the president deemed victims of a two-tiered justice system. Now, however, former officials, journalists, and private citizens who tangled with Trump during his first term are submitting their own claims, arguing the fund's language is broad enough to cover their grievances too.
The legal jiu-jitsu
The executive order establishing the fund speaks of compensating individuals who were "targeted, investigated, prosecuted, or otherwise subjected to adverse governmental action" for political reasons. It does not specify which administration must have done the targeting. Several attorneys representing Trump critics have noted this apparent drafting oversight—or, as some suspect, deliberate vagueness intended to give the administration maximum discretion.
Among those reportedly filing claims are former FBI officials who say they were smeared and harassed after being dismissed, a journalist who faced DOJ subpoenas during the first Trump term, and at least one former State Department employee who alleges retaliation for cooperation with the first impeachment inquiry. The claims vary in substance and merit, but they share a common thread: using the administration's own rhetoric about governmental abuse to seek redress from that same administration.
The administration's bind
DOJ officials have not publicly commented on the claims, and the fund's adjudication process remains opaque. But the submissions put the administration in an awkward position. Rejecting them outright would require articulating why Biden-era persecution counts but Trump-era persecution does not—a distinction that would undermine the fund's stated principle of protecting citizens from governmental overreach regardless of partisan affiliation. Accepting them, meanwhile, would mean acknowledging that the Trump administration itself engaged in the very conduct the president spent years decrying.
The more likely outcome is bureaucratic limbo: claims acknowledged, reviewed indefinitely, and quietly denied on procedural grounds without ever reaching the merits.
Our take
This was always going to happen. When you build a grievance infrastructure premised on the idea that the government persecutes its enemies, you cannot be surprised when your own enemies show up with receipts. The fund was designed as a victory lap, a way to formalize the narrative that Trump and his allies were uniquely victimized. Instead, it has become a mirror, reflecting the uncomfortable truth that governmental overreach is not the exclusive province of any one party. Whether the administration has the self-awareness to recognize this is another matter entirely.
