President Donald Trump fielded questions after the Department of Justice came up with a $1.8 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’. This came after the Republican president moved to dismiss the $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns.
As per DOJ officials, this fund was created ‘in exchange’ for Trump and his co-plaintiffs dropping the IRS suit and other claims of damages over the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search and the Russian collusion scandal. This fund would also give January 6 rioters pardoned by Trump a way to seek taxpayer payouts for claims of government overreach.
According to DOJ officials, the fund can also issue ‘formal apologies’ to people who made such claims against the government, and will stop processing claims by December 15, 2028, about a month before Trump’s second term is set to be over.
Also Read | In Trump’s pardons for Jan 6 rioters, a tale of two realities
The January 6 protesters had stormed the Capitol in what is generally seen as a blemish on the nation’s democratic structures. Given the provision for J6ers in the DOJ fund, a reporter asked President Trump “Why should taxpayers pay for the January 6th-ers?”.
Several posts on X have been shared claiming that Trump’s answer was “Because in my world, loyalty outranks law. They broke the rules for me, so you pay the bill for them. That’s the transaction.”
California Representative Jimmy Gomez also shared this video juxtaposed with a clip of the J6ers wreaking havoc, and wrote “Because in Trump’s world, loyalty outranks the law. They broke the rules for him, and now we foot the bill.”
The alleged response drew criticisms online. “It’s why he will fight as hard as he can to stop the Trump-Epstein Files being released and investigated so no one is held accountable,” one wrote. Another added “Does he know he sounds like a dictator here? This is absurd. No tf it doesn’t. Trump and his friends are not above the law. What is happening and why are we letting this happen?!”
Did Trump say loyalty outranks law? Fact-check
No, Trump did not say anything about loyalty outranking law in his books. The videos that have said remarks in the caption, show the moment from when he was replying to the reporter’s questions on the J6ers. The clip was from C-Span. Here’s the original video.
In reply, Trump can be heard saying “I know very little about it. I wasn’t involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation. This is reimbursing people that were horribly treated, horribly treated. It’s anti-weaponization. They’ve been weaponized, they’ve been, in some cases, imprisoned wrongly. They paid legal fees that they didn’t have. They’ve gone bankrupt. Their lives have been destroyed. And they turn out to be right. I mean, it was a terrible period of time in the history of our country.”
The claims about a remark about loyalty being more important than law appears to be due to the caption Representative Gomez put on his video. The phrase was then repeated numerous times on X, albeit by unverified profiles.
To be sure, despite the amplification, Trump did not make any remarks along the lines of ‘loyalty outranks law’.
