offenders,
I’ve written extensively about how the government curates the trial jury pool to ensure that citizens who understand their historic, injustice-preventing prerogative are the least likely to serve. But what about grand juries? Can the government curate those as well? Just ask the members of the “Broadview Six.”
In a stunning abuse of the legal process, Assistant US Attorneys Matthew Skiba and Sheri Mecklenberg did exactly that. During grand jury proceedings, they systematically excused jurors who expressed disagreement with the government’s narrative. These prosecutions stem from “Operation Midway Blitz,” a high-profile mass deportation campaign carried out in the Chicago area. The government alleged that outside a Broadview, Illinois, immigration holding facility, six individuals surrounded a federal agent’s vehicle and slowed its approach.
The Justice Department eventually dropped charges against two defendants. But the government’s case against the remaining four completely unraveled when US District Judge April Perry reviewed unredacted grand jury transcripts. Federal prosecutors had not only unlawfully curated a grand jury of those who dared to question the government, but they then redacted the transcripts to conceal the manipulation. It took three heavily manipulated grand jury sessions to finally indict the defendants. Shocked by the blatant prosecutorial misconduct, Judge Perry forced the government’s hand, leading US Attorney Andrew Boutros to dismiss the charges with prejudice.
So what happens when the Trump Justice Department is weaponized against protestors? Are the protestors entitled to financial recovery from the president’s slush fund? Don’t hold your breath. While everyday Americans whose constitutional rights have been violated find courthouse doors slammed in their faces, a massive, taxpayer-funded financial cushion has been quietly erected specifically for the administration’s political allies.
The Department of Justice recently structured an unorthodox settlement resolving Donald Trump’s private lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns. Instead of a standard resolution, the settlement established a staggering $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” Overseen by a panel of five commissioners hand-picked by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, this fund operates with absolute presidential discretion. Its explicit purpose is to dole out massive monetary compensation and official apologies to political allies who claim they “suffered weaponization and lawfare.”
This stands in stark contrast to a recent media appearance by Blanche, which highlighted a profound and cynical disconnect in the modern debate over government accountability. When asked by CNN’s Paula Reid if he was comfortable with people convicted of hurting police receiving taxpayer money, Blanche quickly shifted the narrative. He pivoted to a standard institutional defense, asserting that there is an established legal process for individuals who believe their rights were violated to seek relief, while sternly reminding the audience that it is “abhorrent” to ever touch a law enforcement officer. But scratch beneath the rhetorical paint, and you find a deeply troubling double standard.
On his very first day in office, President Trump issued a sweeping blanket proclamation granting full pardons and commutations to nearly 1,600 individuals prosecuted for their roles in the January 6 insurrection. This historic misuse of clemency wiped away the convictions of violent offenders, including Daniel Rodriguez, Albuquerque Head, and Kyle Young—who savagely beat DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone.
The Trump administration framed its slush fund as a correction against partisan lawfare. But when these individuals returned to the streets, the narrative of victimization quickly crumbled into a reality of repeat offenses and violence.
Consider Matthew Huttle, who was originally sentenced for breaching the Capitol and possessed a criminal history that included a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for beating his own three-year-old son. Just weeks after receiving clemency, Huttle was shot and killed after brandishing a firearm at an Indiana sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop. Similarly, MAGA influencer Jake Lang attacked officers with a baseball bat. He used his immediate post-pardon freedom to amplify extremist rhetoric, publicly declaring his intent to “deputize” the Proud Boys to bounty hunt undocumented immigrants. By early 2026, Lang found himself right back in handcuffs, arrested on a felony vandalism charge for destroying an anti-ICE display at the Minnesota State Capitol.
While the administration weaponizes its Justice Department to protect violent political allies, Blanche’s DOJ simultaneously fights aggressively to foreclose civil damage remedies for innocent, everyday victims of federal misconduct. This aggressive deployment of federal force doesn’t just target standard protesters—it has begun to catch high-profile lawmakers in its crosshairs.
Recently, US Senator Andy Kim (D‑NJ) arrived at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, New Jersey, with several other elected officials to meet with the families of detainees staging a hunger strike. Kim reported that rather than engaging with them, ICE officers pepper-sprayed him and the demonstrators, while other officers used batons to disperse the crowd. Yet, if Senator Kim or any of the peaceful demonstrators sought redress for this excessive force, they would find the courthouse doors cemented shut—contrary to what Acting AG Blanche suggested.
The deception in claiming that victims can easily seek relief lies in a web of legal shields deliberately and systematically engineered to evade accountability. Most people whose constitutional rights are shattered by federal agents never laid a hand on an officer, and many never committed a crime at all.
What good is a right without a remedy? As I’ve discussed at length, when federal agents trample on your rights, you cannot simply sue them directly for money damages. Instead, you must sue the government itself under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA)—a convoluted process littered with procedural barriers designed to prevent cases from ever reaching the merits.
The biggest tragedy of our current legal system is that this systemic standoff happens to completely innocent people every single day. Look at Cathy George in Sandy Springs, Georgia, who woke up to a violent, pre-dawn home invasion by the US Marshals Service executing a warrant for a fugitive named Joshua Smiley. Smiley had no connection to George or the state of Georgia and had already been securely locked in a jail cell for four months—a fact the Marshals had previously celebrated in a press release. Because no one bothered to run a five-second database check, George was dragged practically naked into her hallway and forced to watch officers ransack her home without a warrant.
The exact same legal black hole swallowed James King, a college student in Grand Rapids, Michigan. King was walking down the street when he was misidentified, tackled, and brutally beaten into unconsciousness by plainclothes members of a federal joint task force. Believing he was being mugged, King fought back to save his life. While a jury quickly acquitted him of all criminal charges for defending himself, his fight for civil justice has been stalled for years.
This systemic denial of justice repeats from coast to coast, trapping citizens like George Retes in the exact same legal loop. While on his way to work last summer, Retes, a disabled Army combat veteran and US citizen, had his car window shattered, was pepper-sprayed, and was unlawfully detained for three days by ICE before being cut loose without a single charge.
Unlike the high-profile insurrectionists who have already benefitted from executive clemency and are now eligible for massive payouts and official apologies, none of these everyday citizens ever intentionally laid a hand on a police officer. Yet they are left to pick up the pieces of their broken lives alone.
Accountability strikes at the absolute core of what defines the American ideal of a free, open, and just society. Those who value traditionally conservative principles of constitutionally limited government should be the first to embrace the notion that when the government acts aggressively outside the bounds of constitutional norms, its agents must be held liable. Without an accessible civil remedy, the Fourth Amendment’s explicit protection against unreasonable searches and seizures is reduced to little more than dead ink on parchment.
It is the height of corruption for the president to sue his own IRS so that he can out billions to violent criminals who brutally assaulted cops while attempting to overturn the outcome of a free and fair election. This administration has taken the term “weaponization” to a terrifying new level—targeting adversaries, shielding political supporters, and absurdly claiming that bankrolling the foot soldiers of a political movement is consistent with supporting law enforcement.
Those who sympathize with the insurrectionists cannot simultaneously claim to support law enforcement or respect the rule of law. Precious taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward political supporters who perpetrated violence, nor should federal actors be shielded from the consequences of their own misconduct.