A Trump official working as part of the Department of Justice’s “weaponization” task force once boasted that prosecuted Capitol rioters would receive huge compensation payouts, according to a report.
According to NBC News, citing two sources, Ed Martin made the prediction at a dinner with Republican operative Norm Coleman in Washington D.C. earlier this year.
That prospect now looks set to come to pass after the DOJ announced the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to pay restitution to those “who suffered weaponization and lawfare” at the hands of the government.
The fund, which will be administered by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, will be open to applications, meaning it is available to the more than 1,500 people charged by the Biden administration from attempting to overturn the 2020 election by storming Congress on January 6, 2021.
The would-be insurrections – some of whom assaulted police officers on the Capitol steps, raided the offices of lawmakers, and threatened to hang then-vice president Mike Pence – were already pardoned by President Donald Trump on his first day back in office in January 2025 and could now receive a financial award from U.S. taxpayers as well.
Martin and Coleman reportedly discussed the 2026 midterm elections, D.C. federal grand juries and former special counsel Jack Smithat the Peacock Lounge at the Willard InterContinental in Washington D.C., NBC sources said, as well as the prospect of a fund being set up to the advantage of the insurrections before the end of Trump’s second and final term.
However, Martin reportedly estimated the size of the fund at just $40 million, a great deal less than the amount announced by the DOJ Monday.
The formation of the fund came after the president and the Trump Organization dropped a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Review Service over the alleged leak of his tax returns.
Coleman, a former Minnesota senator, told NBC its sources had “taken part of a conversation totally out of context” and that he had “no interest in discussing snippets of breakfast conversation with a friend”.
A DOJ spokesman said Martin “did not make these remarks” while the former task force official himself, now U.S. pardon attorney, declined to issue a response.
The Independent has also reached out to Martin and the DOJ for comment.
Martin is known as an outspoken backer of the “Stop the Steal” movement and was previously the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, but his support for the rioters cost him the endorsement of rebel North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, who declined to endorse his nomination to the role full time.
Unrepentant, Martin told MAGA influencer Benny Johnson’s podcast in May last year that he was in favour of “reparations” payments: “You’re damn right I want to pay J6ers. If you got wronged by the government, then you should be made right. That’s America.”
He cheered the creation of the fund on X Monday, writing on his personal account: “To the survivors of political weaponization: The lesson of the last few days is to never stop fighting.
“Never stand down, never disarm, and follow the lead of President Trump who never stops fighting.”
Vice President JD Vance was grilled about the fund at a White House press conference Tuesday and said: “We’re trying to compensate people where the book was thrown at them, they were mistreated by the legal system.”
He denied that the scheme would benefit people who attacked law enforcement and pointed out that even Hunter Biden, the former president’s son, would be eligible to make a claim.
The Trump administration last year settled with the estate of Ashli Babbitt, one of the rioters who was shot dead by a police officer as she attempted to climb through a broken window leading to the House Speaker’s Lobby during the melee, paying out $5 million and offering a funeral with full military honors for the Air Force veteran.
Babbitt has been recast as a “martyr” in the years since the failed coup by MAGA Republicans keen to reframe the events of that infamous day as a peaceful protest.
