A federal judge in Alexandria has refused to dismiss as moot a challenge to a proposed $1.8 billion compensation mechanism described by critics as an “anti-weaponization fund,” keeping alive a closely watched dispute over executive power, appropriations, and the legal limits of government settlement structures.

The plaintiffs, including Democracy Forward, had challenged the concept as an effort to channel large-scale payouts tied to claims by Trump political allies through an executive-branch mechanism rather than through a clearer congressional appropriations process.

A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, has kept alive a closely watched challenge to the Trump administration’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” signaling she is not persuaded the case should disappear simply because the government now says the plan has been abandoned.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s reaction is significant less for the fate of the fund itself than for the constitutional questions still hanging over it.