Native News
If There’s $1.776 Billion for January 6 Rioters, Why Not for Broken Indian Treaties?
Opinion
On May 18, 2026, the Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Justice announced the creation of the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” a $1.776 billion program intended to compensate individuals who claim they are victims of politically motivated government investigations or prosecutions. Borrowing from the theme of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the fund was set at $1.776 billion.
The fund was part of a settlement negotiated by the DOJ in President Donald J. Trump v. Internal Revenue Service. It is intended to compensate individuals who claim they were subjected to government “weaponization” or “lawfare,” a group that critics argued could include some participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Fortunately, on May 29, 2026, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema temporarily blocked the Trump administration from creating or distributing money from the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund while litigation moved forward. Two weeks later, on June 12, Brinkema strengthened that ruling by issuing a preliminary injunction that keeps the fund frozen and requires the administration to provide sworn assurances if it intends to abandon the program, marking a significant setback for the controversial initiative.
The images from January 6 still linger in my mind: rioters breached police barricades, forcibly entered the Capitol building, assaulted law enforcement officers, vandalized government property, and disrupted the constitutionally mandated certification of the 2020 presidential election, forcing lawmakers to evacuate or shelter in place. The insurrectionists even called for the lynching of then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was there to fulfill his constitutional duty of overseeing the certification process.
The attack resulted in hundreds of criminal prosecutions for offenses ranging from trespassing and disorderly conduct to assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. In one of the first acts of his second term, President Trump pardoned many of those convicted in connection with the attack, including individuals convicted of violent offenses.
This past week, President Trump publicly continued to endorse the concept of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, even as his administration told courts and Congress that it was no longer moving forward with the program. He called the fund “a good idea.”
The Trump administration has a strange way of deciding who deserves compensation.
For generations, Native Americans have endured broken treaties, stolen lands, forced removals, Indian boarding schools, cultural destruction, and policies designed to erase our very existence. Yet when tribes seek justice, we are told that the past is too complicated, too expensive, or simply too long ago to remedy.
When the United States signed treaties with Tribal Nations, those agreements were supposed to carry the full force of law. Instead, they were repeatedly violated whenever gold was discovered, settlers demanded more land, or political convenience took precedence.
Entire Tribal Nations were forced from their homelands. Sacred sites were destroyed. Children were taken from their families and sent to boarding schools, where many suffered abuse and were forbidden from speaking their languages or practicing their cultures.
The consequences of those policies did not disappear with the history books. They continue to echo across generations in lost languages, fractured families, economic hardship, and ongoing battles over land, water, and sovereignty.
Even when courts rule in favor of tribes, enforcement often comes slowly or incompletely. Even when Congress acknowledges historical wrongs, meaningful compensation is rare and typically arrives only after decades of litigation and negotiation.
Native people have had to fight for every inch of justice.
The irony is impossible to ignore.
People who knowingly entered the U.S. Capitol during an insurrection may ultimately benefit from a compensation program championed by political leaders, while Indigenous communities continue to struggle to secure funding promised through treaties signed nearly two centuries ago.
That is not equal justice.
It reflects a deeper problem in how America remembers its history. We rush to rewrite recent political narratives while refusing to fully confront the nation’s original sins against Indigenous peoples.
If taxpayer dollars are available to compensate insurrectionists, then there should be an even greater willingness to fulfill treaty obligations, invest in Tribal infrastructure, protect Native languages, strengthen health care through the Indian Health Service, and address the long-standing inequities created by federal policy.
The federal government has both a legal and moral trust responsibility to tribal nations. That responsibility was not optional when treaties were signed, and it is not optional today.
The United States cannot claim to be a nation of laws if those laws are enforced selectively and historical promises are honored only when politically expedient.
Our ancestors were promised peace, protection, education, health care, and respect for our sovereign rights in exchange for millions of acres of land that became the foundation of this country. Too often, those promises were broken.
No amount of money can erase that history.
But paying people who participated in an assault on democracy while generations of Native Americans continue waiting for the federal government to honor its own commitments would send a devastating message about whose grievances matter and whose can be ignored.
America should be investing in justice, not rewarding insurrection.
The very idea of the Anti-Weaponization Fund should outrage every American who believes in accountability and justice.
Equally troubling is its symbolic design: invoking the spirit of 1776 by allocating exactly $1.776 billion to compensate participants who attacked the constitutional transfer of power is not patriotic — it is a distortion of the principles the nation claims to celebrate.
Thayék gde nwéndëmen – We are all related.