WASHINGTON — Applications are already rolling into the Justice Department from hopefuls aiming for some of the nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, even though the process can’t officially begin until commissioners are chosen to decide how the money is doled out.

The fund was announced this week, part of an unprecedented settlement between President Donald Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organization and the government he oversees over the leak of his tax returns. He agreed to drop legal claims in exchange for creating the fund.

It’s not clear yet how people are expected to formally apply. The pool of possible applicants is substantial, according to a Justice Department overview that was sent to GOP Senate offices Thursday.

“Literally tens of millions of Americans were subjected to improper and unlawful government targeting, including extensive government censorship and aggressive lawfare,” according to the overview.

Justice Department officials said the five commissioners will be chosen in the coming weeks — the appointments must be made within 30 days from when the settlement was signed Monday. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will make the decisions, though Congress members will get input on one of them. The president can fire the commissioners at will.

The department is working under a deadline, in part because the money pool — if it isn’t blocked by Congress or courts — would have to be distributed by the end of Trump’s term in 2028. Legal challenges have already begun, and disbursements could be tied up in the courts until well after the deadline, or it could be declared unlawful.

Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the fund. Opponents have labeled it a massive “slush fund” for Trump’s allies. Its existence has alarmed some legal experts, in part because there will be very little public oversight over how it is managed.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said Thursday it was a “payout pot for punks.”

“These people don’t deserve restitution,” he said of the people who stand to get payments. “They — many of them — deserve to be in prison.”

Objections to the fund prompted Senate Republicans to put off a vote to fund ICE and the Border Patrol, according to two GOP sources familiar with the discussions, as reported by NBC News.

“It’s just an insane cash grab” benefiting people who were willing to commit crimes on Trump’s behalf, said Chris Mattei, an attorney who represents FBI employees fired by the Trump administration, who are separately pursuing lawsuits against the administration over claims their dismissals were political.

There are no names for commissioners officially on the board yet at the Justice Department, according to an administration official.

One of those making pitches is Mike Howell, the head of the Oversight Project, which grew out of the conservative Heritage Foundation and says it seeks to root out fraud. Howell wrote Blanche in a letter Wednesday that he was already steeped in the work the fund will do and that if is named he would help destroy the “mythology” created by the “radical left” around the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

“These victims are my friends, colleagues, and fellow patriots,” Howell wrote.

One of Howell’s employees, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, has already said the fund could “make me whole.” The D.C. bar has recommended that Clark be disbarred after he pushed election conspiracy theories in the days after Trump’s 2020 election loss. The Trump administration is seeking to nullify the effort.

According to the Justice Department overview to the GOP senators, the idea is to offer accountability for “millions of Americans whose online speech was censored at the behest of the government, parents silenced at schoolboards, senators whose records were secretly subpoenaed, churchgoers targeted by the FBI, and so on.”

The examples cited are all MAGA arguments, but the fact sheet states: “There is no partisan restriction: Democrats can submit claims, too.”

The guidelines for filing claims will be outlined after the commissioners are named, according to a fact sheet sent to GOP senators. The five-person group will award money case by case and must consider “a claimant’s personal conduct and character when making a determination,” the fact sheet reads.

The commissioners will create a quarterly report listing who has been paid, which will be shared with Congress. It can be audited, according to the handout to GOP senators.

Applicants aren’t waiting for the official process. On Thursday, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other charges and then later testified for the prosecution in Trump’s New York hush money trial, said he planned to apply.

“Nobody told me or called me up to say, ‘Hey, you should do this,’” he told NBC News. He said he saw on television that Michael Caputo, a Trump ally, had put a request out publicly in a letter. “My understanding is that no formal application exists. It is done via letter to the Department of Justice. I have drafted that letter — and am currently on my third iteration of it. I want it to be perfect.”

Two lawyers who say they represent more than 400 participants in the Jan. 6 riot who are already suing the Justice Department said this week that they expected their clients to apply through the fund, rather than continue with litigation.

One woman, whose husband admitted assaulting law enforcement in the melee, posted on X that Jan. 6 defendants deserved payouts.

“There must be accountability for what was done to so many American families. Until justice is truly served, we will never fully be home again — and our nation will never fully heal,” Kari Hoffman wrote.

Though anyone can apply, Blanche said applications don’t guarantee payment. He told CNN on Wednesday that an applicant’s record of violent behavior would be taken into consideration.

More than 140 police officers were injured in the Jan. 6 riot as protesters violently attacked law enforcement, smashed windows and broke into the Capitol in the failed effort to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s win. Two of those officers sued to block the fund this week.

Caputo, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services during Trump’s first term, asked for $2.7 million, telling Blanche in a letter posted on X that “the machinery of government was clearly politically weaponized against my family from July 2016 to December 2025.”

Caputo, who was never charged criminally, said he was targeted in two investigations, one involving Russian interference in the 2016 election and the other into an anti-Biden documentary he hosted that was linked to Russian intelligence, according to a 2021 intelligence report.

“One of the primary reasons I came forward is so that all of the other deserving people do it, too, Democrat or Republican,” Caputo said in an interview. He said the figure was preliminary because it’s hard to count intangibles like lost business or revenue.

Caputo said he had been working on the idea of something like the fund since 2023, through Trump’s presidential campaign. He said there were discussions over whether Democrats would be included. Caputo, Blanche and other Republicans have specifically pointed to Hunter Biden, the son of the former president, who was convicted of a gun charge he has decried as political.

“Political weaponization isn’t just one party,” he said. “There are people on both sides who suffered through political weaponization who can be shown mercy.”

Progressive podcaster Allison Gill — a former Department of Veterans Affairs employee forced out of her job over her “Mueller, She Wrote” podcast — said she filed a claim to Blanche this week.

She asked for $8.647 million, a seeming reference to the “8647” seashells Instagram photo that the Trump administration used to charge former FBI Director James Comey because, the Trump administration asserts, “8647” is a threat against Trump.

Comey joked this week on CNN that he guessed he’d be in line for a payout.

“I hope I’ll be ahead of those who savagely beat police officers and sacked the Capitol,” he said.