John Adams quote projected on DOJ building in protest of $1.8B fund

WASHINGTON — Opponents of a $1.776 billion taxpayer-backed “anti-weaponization” fund projected a quotation from one of the Founding Fathers onto the Justice Department building in protest.

“A government of laws, not of men,” read the quotation from John Adams, the second president.

The quotation was shown over one of the large banners of President Donald Trump that were set up in February at the Justice Department headquarters, known as “Main Justice.”

Stacey Young, a former Justice Department employee who founded the group Justice Connection, which projected the phrase onto the building, told NBC News that the “$1.8 billion slush fund” was “appalling.”

“We are standing up for department’s integrity and the rule of law,” Young said outside the building. The Justice Department is operating “as an arm of the White House” and doing Trump’s bidding by protecting his allies and going after his enemies, she said.

“That is an extraordinary abuse of power, and it’s a sign that the rule of law is crumbling before our eyes,” Young said.

Justice Connection said the Trump administration “shifted the country away from a system of laws and toward an era of lawlessness,” citing the firing of prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases and “cash payments” to Capitol riot defendants it expects the Trump administration to pay out.

A banner depicting President Donald Trump hangs on the Justice Department building in Washington on Feb. 23. Tom Williams / Getty Images

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a congressional hearing that the fund was for anyone who felt they were the victims of a weaponized government. He said applying doesn’t mean a guarantee of money.

The fund was created as part of a settlement with Trump to drop legal claims. Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns, and he made other claims of damages in connection with a 2022 search of his Florida home and the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The fund has drawn scrutiny from Democrats, as well as some Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who said Tuesday he was “not a big fan.”

Blanche will appoint five members of a board that will oversee the payouts, all of whom Trump can fire. Congress will weigh in on one of the five members.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who signed off on the deal, told reporters Tuesday that it was “way, way, way too early” to “rush to judgment on whether this was a good or a bad idea, to describe it as a slush fund or really even to criticize it” because no claims had been filed or paid yet.

“So come see us after we’ve made one of these so-called corrupt payments. Come see us after this fund exists as a so-called slush fund,” Woodward said. “What we’re trying to do is correct for the weaponization that was pervasive in the last administration.”