1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

Re: $1.7 Billion in Taxpayer Funds for January 6th Insurrectionists I Am Asking You to Act Dear Senator / Representative, I am a constituent in your district, and I am writing to ask three specific things of you regarding the Trump administration’s proposed $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded compensation fund for individuals charged in the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. I will state those requests plainly at the end of this letter, and I am asking for a written response within 30 days. I pay my taxes on time. I have voted in every election since I was eligible. I have never been arrested. I have done, in other words, exactly what this country asks of its citizens. Like many Americans, I am currently feeling the weight of rising costs, reduced services, and real uncertainty about the future. I raise that not for sympathy, but for context — because I need you to understand who is writing this letter and what they are watching happen. What I am watching is this: according to reporting confirmed by ABC News, Fortune, and Time Magazine, the administration is preparing to resolve a presidential lawsuit against the IRS — a lawsuit a federal judge had already questioned as constitutionally invalid, since the President controls both sides of it — by creating a $1.7 billion fund drawn directly from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund. No congressional vote is required. The commission distributing the money answers only to the President, who may remove its members at will. Its proceedings and the identities of its recipients may be kept entirely private. Its beneficiaries include the nearly 1,600 individuals federally charged for the January 6th attack on the Capitol — the building where you work, and where the certification of a lawful election was violently interrupted. I want to be precise about what that means: people who attacked the seat of American government are to be compensated with public money, through a secret process, overseen by the same person who directed them to march on the Capitol in the first place. At the same time, ordinary Americans are being told that budgets must be cut, that programs must be reduced, that there simply is not enough. There is apparently enough for this. I was also raised to believe that voting is a constitutional right — affirmed by the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments. When elected officials suggest that voting is a privilege that can be conditioned or restricted, and then turn around and reward the people who violently attempted to nullify the votes of millions of Americans, it raises a question you need to answer out loud: what is the return on citizenship for those of us who simply follow the law? I am therefore asking you to do three things: 1. Introduce or co-sponsor legislation requiring explicit congressional approval before the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund can be used for any compensation scheme of this nature. 2. Demand full public transparency and congressional oversight of any commission created to distribute these funds — including the identities of all recipients and the basis for each award. 3. State publicly and on the record whether you believe it is an appropriate use of taxpayer money to compensate individuals convicted or charged in connection with a violent attack on the United States Capitol. These are not partisan requests. They are questions of basic accountability and equal treatment under the law. The people who stormed the Capitol did not represent me. They did not represent the rule of law. And they should not be paid with my taxes. I look forward to your written response within 30 days. Respectfully, A Constituent