The Associated Press reports:

David Johnston was a licensed attorney when he illegally entered the Capitol with a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. More than five years later, the South Carolina man is offering to help fellow “J6ers” apply for payouts from the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion new fund for people claiming to be victims of a weaponized government.

He’ll do it for a 10% cut of any award, capped at $5,000 apiece.

“I think the narrative is changing” about how the history of that day is being told, Johnston said in a video he posted to social media. “I think good things are happening for us.”

Hundreds of Trump loyalists pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol, admitting under oath that they broke the law. Now pardoned by Trump, many hope to capitalize on their crimes by tapping into the $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate the Republican president’s allies who believe they were politically prosecuted. [Continue reading…]

Georgetown law professor, Adam Levitin, writes:

The False Claims Act originated during the Civil War as a tool for combating government contractor fraud, but it has since expanded to cover government benefit fraud as well. The language of the statute, however, is arguably broad enough to encompass Anti-Weaponization Fund payments. The statute prohibits “knowingly present[ing], or caus[ing] to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval” or a conspiracy to do so. There are fearsome treble damages for a violation and the action can be brought either by the federal government or by a relator—that is a private person acting in the name of the government—in what is known as a qui tam action. That’s short for “qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur,” which means “Who sues on behalf of the King, as well as for himself.” (Or in this case, on behalf of the no-Kings, it would seem…) If successful, the relator gets a bounty of 15%-30% of the recovery, creating a powerful incentive for private parties to bring qui tam suits.

So what’s the False Claims Act theory here? The idea is that the entire Anti-Weaponization Fund is a scheme to defraud the government because of the unconstitutionality of the Fund’s structure. It’s done knowingly because of the reckless disregard for its constitutionality. Therefore, any payment from the fund would be part of that fraudulent scheme, leaving the recipient potentially liable for treble damages (plus their own court costs and interest at the federal judgment rate). That could be more than $5.4 billion in liability, if the fund were to pay out every cent. And the President, the Acting Attorney General, and whoever is on the committee to administer the Fund would have their own treble damage civil liability for a false claims conspiracy. [Continue reading…]