WASHINGTON — Opponents of a $1.776 billion taxpayer-backed “anti-weaponization” fund projected a quote from one of the Founding Fathers onto the Justice Department building in protest.

“A government of laws, not of men,” read the quote from John Adams, who served as the second president of the United States.

The Adams quote shown over one of the large banners of President Donald Trump that were set up in February at the Justice Department headquarters, known as “Main Justice.”

Stacey Young, a former Justice Department employee who founded the group Justice Connection that projected the phrase onto the building told NBC News that the “1.8 billion dollar slush fund” was “appalling.”

“We are standing up for Department’s integrity and the rule of law,” Young said, standing outside the building. The Justice Department was currently operating “as an arm of the White House” and doing the presidents bidding by protecting Trump’s allies and going after his enemies, she said.

“That is an extraordinary abuse of power, and it’s a sign that the rule of law is crumbling before our eyes,” Young said.

Justice Connection said that the Trump administration “shifted the country away from a system of laws and toward an era of lawlessness,” citing the firing of prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases, and “cash payments” to Capitol riot defendants they expect the Trump administration to pay out.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a Congressional hearing the fund was for anyone who felt they were the victims of a weaponized government. He said that applying doesn’t mean a guarantee of money.

The fund was created as part of a settlement with the president to drop legal claims. Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, and he made other claims of damages in connection with a 2022 search of his Florida home and the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The fund has drawn scrutiny from Democrats as well as some Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who said Tuesday he was “not a big fan.”

Blanche will appoint five members of a board who will oversee the payouts, all of whom can be fired by Trump. Congress will weigh in on one of the five members of the board.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who signed off on the deal, told reporters Tuesday that it was “way, way, way too early” to “rush to judgment on whether this was a good or a bad idea, to describe it as a slush fund, or really even to criticize it” because no claims had been filed or paid yet.

“So come see us after we’ve made one of these so-called corrupt payments. Come see us after this fund exists as a so-called slush fund,” Woodward said. “What we’re trying to do is correct for the weaponization that was pervasive in the last administration.”