The anti-weaponization fund was supposed to be finished. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche entered an agreement this week rescinding it, and posted a document indicating the accompanying IRS immunity arrangement had been narrowed.

The plaintiffs challenging it in court are not convinced. On Thursday they filed an amended complaint arguing that neither the fund nor the immunity deal has actually been eliminated, and that both remain unlawful.

The Core Argument

The coalition behind the most successful challenge to date, which includes a former January 6 prosecutor, is pressing forward against the nearly $1.8 billion taxpayer fund that would have compensated convicted January 6 rioters.

Their position is blunt. They write that the fund and the immunity order are just as unlawful and harmful now as they were the day they were issued.

The reasoning turns on what Blanche actually did versus what he announced.

The Unsigned Document Problem

Blanche did not rescind the immunity arrangement. He indicated Sunday night, in a document posted online, that he was narrowing its terms.

His version limits the immunity provision to the named parties in Trump’s IRS lawsuit. That is considerably narrower than the original May 19 addendum, which covered the named parties, meaning Trump, his two eldest sons and the Trump Organization, along with related or affiliated individuals.

The complication is that the document Blanche posted is unsigned, and therefore not a legally binding order. The Justice Department has not published a signed order formally narrowing the scope.

The amended complaint seizes on exactly this. Plaintiffs describe the posting as an unsigned piece of paper carrying no more weight than a press release, and argue that rather than resolving anything, it confirms the IRS will terminate audits and tax liabilities at the president’s request.

The First Challenge to the Immunity Deal Itself

While several cases have targeted the fund, this filing marks the first direct legal attack on the immunity agreement.

The plaintiffs advance two theories.

The first is constitutional, arguing the provision hands Trump a lucrative and unconstitutional emolument.

The second is statutory. Federal law prohibits the president from asking the IRS to terminate audits of specific taxpayers, including himself. The plaintiffs contend the arrangement does precisely that.

Solving the Standing Problem

A significant question hovering over any challenge to the immunity deal was whether anyone had legal standing to bring it. Courts require a plaintiff who suffers concrete injury, and identifying one here was not obvious.

The amended complaint addresses this by adding the National Treasury Employees Union as a plaintiff.

The union represents career IRS auditors, the people who would actually be responsible for closing out any existing audits of Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization.

The alleged injury is specific and personal. The complaint argues the immunity order would conscript career employees into delivering a lucrative benefit unavailable to any other American.

That creates an impossible position for those employees. Carrying out the instruction, the complaint argues, would cause them to violate their oath of office and potentially expose them to criminal liability. Refusing it would expose them to retaliation.

Whether or not the theory ultimately succeeds, it is a legally shrewd move. It converts an abstract objection about presidential conduct into a concrete workplace harm affecting identifiable individuals.

What Blanche’s Order Did Not Say

The plaintiffs also point to what they characterize as loopholes in the order that supposedly killed the fund.

Their complaint criticizes the drafting as present-tense wordsmithing, arguing it does not affirm under penalty of perjury that the fund will not proceed in any manner or under any name, either now or in the future. They add that nothing prevents parties to the underlying agreement, including the president, from enforcing it.

This connects to an earlier moment in the litigation. In June, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema asked the Justice Department to submit a sworn declaration assuring her the fund would not proceed in any manner or under any name.

The department did not comply then, and according to the plaintiffs, it has still stopped short of that affirmation.

Blanche’s signed order Sunday night contained no language barring creation of a similar fund in the future. He rescinded the prior order and stated it shall have no force or effect, which addresses the past without foreclosing the future.

That gap is the entire basis for the plaintiffs continuing to litigate a fund the government says no longer exists.

Where the Case Stands

Brinkema indefinitely blocked the administration from taking steps to create the fund in June, and that order has remained in place as litigation continues.

The amended complaint arrives one week before Brinkema is scheduled to hear arguments on the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the challenge. The new filing may delay that hearing.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the amended complaint.

The Underlying Dispute

Beneath the procedural detail sits a straightforward disagreement about what counts as ending something.

The government’s position is that rescinding an order eliminates it, and that continued litigation over a rescinded policy is unnecessary.

The plaintiffs’ position is that a rescission which can be reversed, accompanied by an unsigned modification and no sworn commitment against revival, leaves the underlying legal question open.

Courts generally dismiss challenges to policies that have been genuinely abandoned. They are considerably less willing to do so when the government retains the ability to reinstate the policy the moment the case goes away.

That distinction is what Brinkema will have to resolve.