Antony Vo was at a friend’s house Monday morning when a fellow pardoned Jan. 6 rioter sent a message: The Trump administration had just created a fund to benefit people who believed they had been wronged by the federal government — including those, like him, who had stormed the Capitol five years ago.

Vo, who briefly fled the country to avoid his prison sentence stemming from the riot, said he did not know at first that the fund had come about as part of a larger deal by President Donald Trump to withdraw an extraordinary lawsuit filed against the IRS. But the origins of the fund, he said, were less important than how it made him feel: surprised, relieved and grateful all at once.

“I’m glad it turned into something,” he said, “that could help people who have been hurting for quite a while now.”

That reaction, it turns out, appeared typical among the so-called Jan. 6ers who have long joined Trump in claiming that the efforts to hold them accountable for disrupting the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election amounted to mistreatment by the criminal justice system.

Some felt that the fund validated their self-image as victims of the government. Others felt elated — albeit somewhat stunned — at the prospect of a payout. And not a few felt a bit confused at how the process of filing claims and receiving checks could play out.

“So many questions,” said Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys who was sentenced to 22 years on a seditious conspiracy conviction arising from the riot. “But it’s a good direction.”

The possibility that people who ransacked the Capitol, smashing windows and fighting with police, could get money from the same federal government they attacked was the latest head-spinning twist in the effort to rewrite the history of Jan. 6. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, did not rule out violent rioters receiving payouts from the fund.

It has not been lost on many Jan. 6ers that by deeming them worthy of reparations, the most powerful officials in the country have effectively validated their claims of having been wronged by the federal government — claims that, in many instances, were roundly rejected by the judges of both parties who oversaw their cases.

“This is the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE acknowledging the possibility that Americans were targeted through political abuse of government power,” Tommy Tatum, a Mississippi man who was charged with civil disorder for interfering with the police on Jan. 6, wrote Monday in a post on social media. “That is historic.”

In a typical Trumpian move, the president has both played down his knowledge of the fund and praised it as necessary, telling reporters that while he did not know much about the proposal, it was put in place to reimburse people “that were horribly treated.”

“These were people that were weaponized and really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt with corrupt people running it,” he said.

The fund has spawned wide blowback, including criticism from some Republicans. Critics have said the real corruption comes from Trump and the Justice Department, which hashed out details of the fund in a deal that was never filed to the federal judge who oversaw the suit against the IRS.

At the same time, experts on far-right extremism have raised concerns that giving money to people who stormed the Capitol — especially to those who assaulted police — would only bolster political violence.

“It proves that extremism pays — literally,” said Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a nonprofit group that seeks to counter antisemitism and extremism. “Over the last decade, we’ve seen this trajectory of conspiracy theories on the fringes moving to the mainstream and being normalized because of Trump and other elected leaders.”

“Now,” Spitalnick added, “they’re not just being normalized, they’re actually being encouraged by financial incentives.”

At this early stage, many pardoned rioters have only started to muse on how they might spend a government payout. Among the ideas being kicked around: new cars, new houses, paying to get their names off Google and underwriting political campaigns.

The rioters are not, of course, the only people who could file claims to the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund. The deal that laid out how it would work specifically mentioned others who might seek payouts — including abortion protesters who faced prosecution during the Biden administration and organizations targeted by the IRS “based on improper ideological criteria.”

There is, in fact, a long list of people in Trump’s orbit who have claimed they were wronged by federal investigations or prosecutions.

Appearing at the Senate hearing Tuesday, Blanche suggested that several Republican lawmakers whose telephone records were seized by Smith in 2023 might receive money from the fund. Even some of Trump’s political opponents have cheekily suggested that they might enter claims as well on the theory that the president had weaponized the Justice Department against them.

On Monday, for example, James Comey, the former FBI director who has been indicted twice since Trump reentered office, appeared on CNN, saying that — who knew? — he might ask the fund for money.

“It’s to compensate people who’ve been targeted by the Justice Department for, they say, personal, political or ideological reasons,” Comey said. “So I’m guessing I’ll be in line.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Alan Feuer/Kenny Holston
c. 2026 The New York Times Company