The Hill reports:

The Justice Department (DOJ) on Friday snubbed a federal judge’s demand to swear that a nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is dead, arguing the request raises “serious separation of powers concerns.”

Judge Leonie Brinkema indefinitely blocked the fund last Friday and issued a seven-day deadline for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward to declare under penalty of perjury that it would not move forward “to avoid any further litigation.”

But DOJ attorneys declined to offer that commitment in writing, asserting on Friday that it should not be required to do so in order to have a lawsuit brought by a former federal prosecutor and others dismissed.

“Such declarations are unnecessary and the compelled testimony of senior officials from the Executive Branch implicates serious separation of powers concerns,” Woodward’s senior counsel Andrew Block wrote in a filing.

The president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs in this case, called the Justice Department’s filing “telling” in a statement.

“It is telling that even after the federal court gave them a week, the Acting Attorney General and other senior administration officials continue to refuse to say under oath that the Slush Fund is dead and won’t operate in the future,” Skye Perryman said. “Nor have they provided any information under oath about their compliance with the court’s prior directives.” [Continue reading…]