A federal judge has extended her block on one of the most contested funds inside the Justice Department, and she is refusing to take the government’s assurances at face value. On Friday, June 12, 2026, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema granted a preliminary injunction that further blocks the DOJ’s roughly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, and she set a hard deadline for the administration to prove, under oath, that the effort is truly finished.
What the Judge Ordered
Brinkema gave the government until June 19 to file a sworn declaration guaranteeing that the fund will not move forward under any name. The requirement is unusually specific. Rather than accepting a routine filing from a department attorney, the judge ordered that the guarantee come from three of the highest-ranking officials connected to the matter: Acting Attorney General Blanche, Associate Attorney General Woodward, and Treasury Secretary Bessent.
Each of those officials would be signing the declaration under penalty of perjury. That detail matters. It means the three would be staking their personal legal credibility on the promise, not simply offering a non-binding statement that the program has been shelved.
Why Brinkema Was Skeptical
The DOJ had argued that the case was essentially moot. In its telling, the fund was already off the table, so there was nothing left for the court to enjoin. Judges often dismiss cases on those grounds when a disputed action has genuinely been abandoned.
Brinkema was not persuaded. She pointed to President Trump’s own stated desire to push the effort forward as reason to doubt that the matter was actually settled. If the top of the executive branch is still signaling intent to revive the fund, the judge reasoned, then a claim that it is dead deserves more than a verbal promise. That gap between what the department said in court and what the President said publicly is precisely what the sworn declaration is designed to close.
The Stakes of the Deadline
The June 19 deadline now functions as a test of how far the administration is willing to go. To satisfy the court, the three officials would need to formally and legally commit to abandoning the fund – not just for now, but under any future label. That is a significant concession, and one that would be difficult to walk back later without exposing the signers to legal risk.
The alternative is for the government to decline the guarantee and instead fight to keep the option open. That path would effectively confirm what Brinkema suspected: that the fund was never truly dead, and that the mootness argument was a way to end the lawsuit without giving up the underlying goal.
What This Means for Americans
At its core, this is a story about accountability and the limits of executive power. A $1.8 billion pool of taxpayer money is a substantial sum, and the courts are the venue where the public learns whether such programs survive scrutiny. Brinkema’s order insists that powerful officials answer in writing, under oath, rather than relying on informal assurances that can quietly reverse once attention fades. For anyone who believes that government promises should be enforceable, the demand for a sworn declaration is the point.
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