We’re launching the real “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — to defend targets of Trump's ire.
A vengeful president wants his targets to be isolated and afraid. A new DEFIANCE.org project will make sure they’re neither.
Donald Trump’s corrupt “anti-weaponization fund” is dead (for now). The billion-dollar program he devised to hand your taxpayer dollars to pro-Trump criminals never got off the ground. But today, we’re launching an actual one — to thwart his campaign of retribution.
We’re calling it the real Anti-Weaponization Fund, and its purpose is straightforward: when the president of the United States illegally wields his power to destroy someone’s life, we’ll have resources to help fight back. The effort was first announced last night, and it’s being funded by DEFIANCE.org.
I know what the destruction from a presidential grudge feels like, because I’ve dealt with it more than once. When I came forward from inside his first administration to speak out, he tried to ruin my life. I rebuilt it in the aftermath. But when Donald Trump returned to office, he signed an order directing federal agencies to investigate me for “treason” — for speech the First Amendment plainly protects. It took him almost nothing. The squiggle of a pen and a short press conference. That was enough to swing a heavy wrecking ball into my life once more.
The blacklist did its work fairly quickly. As most of you know, my small business collapsed, as colleagues and clients fled. Some of my closest friends went quiet, afraid that association with me would put them in Trump’s crosshairs, too. And the ordinary rhythms of our life — whether it was family gatherings, dinners in Washington, D.C., and the simple assumption of safety — were soon replaced by a low, constant hum of dread. Then there was the false quietude of fear. Or maybe you’d call it the silence that comes after an explosion.
People I loved reached out to me and my wife and whispered to us that we shouldn’t poke the bear. We shouldn’t fight back against Trump, regardless of the consequences we were already suffering. It will blow over, they said, so don’t make it worse for yourself. What many of them were actually saying was: Don’t make it worse for us. I understood and heeded them, for a while. But that kind of silence is corrosive to anyone with a conscience. The loneliness gnaws at you, and after a while it curdles into something a lot worse; it becomes a kind of silent shame — that you took advice to do the thing which you knew was wrong. Staying quiet.
Then something happened. My wife and I broke. The quiet drove us mad, especially at ourselves. We felt betrayed by our own concessions — and the unnatural act of laying low when everything inside of us said that what’s right is to fight back. To defy. We took a deep breath and stood back up.
When we did, we were genuinely surprised to discover we were not alone. Yes, a lot of people in our social circle scurried away, stopped calling, or stopped responding to texts. But we discovered another universe of support we never knew existed. It poured in from all corners of the country, from people we’d never met and likely never will. Complete strangers. Their encouragement did more than buoy our spirits. Some of them gave us the means to stand our ground and bring legal challenges against the administration, some of which are still to come. (Our friends at Whistleblower Aid offered the support of their legal defense fund, and thousands chipped in.)
My story has become a mere footnote in the scope of Trump’s sprawling and unprecedented revenge campaign. He has gone after members of Congress and business executives and foreign leaders and regular folks who have challenged his conduct. He’s made a sport of wielding federal authority for personal grievance.
In the months after he attacked me, one of my good friends who never wavered, Xander Schultz, called me with an idea: we should find a way to help others who are in the president’s crosshairs. We should build an organization to gather around the targets of Trump’s revenge machine at the precise moment the intimidation is designed to paralyze them. Then, we could be a lifeline… give them the financial support… offer encouragement to be brave instead of being compliant.
In the end, we went bigger. We launched DEFIANCE.org to crowd-source courage for all Americans — giving anyone and everyone an opportunity, every single week, to fight Trump’s corruption in ways big and small. That’s what we do now. Each Wednesday, we announce a real action to counter his abuses of power.
But we never lost sight of that original idea. And this week, we’re bringing it to life in an early iteration.
Which brings me back to the real Anti-Weaponization Fund. Trump used that term to describe a scheme to loot the Treasury for his allies. Thankfully, that fund is moribund because of congressional pressure and public outrage. But we’re taking the term away from him and using it to describe our effort to counter the weaponization of government. His weaponization of government.
Here’s how it works. When the president threatens or opens an investigation into someone, files charges, or strips a person of their job, license, or security clearance (because they did their job, exercised their rights, or stood up to abuses of power), our team will reach out. First, to tell them what I needed to hear in my darkest stretch: you are not alone. Then, as resources allow, we’ll help cover legal, security, and/or support costs. Where we can, we’ll connect targets with legal defense organizations and other pro-democracy groups equipped to take up their cause. And we’ll mobilize our community in their defense, including by collecting messages of encouragement for those targeted people.
We’ve already been doing this informally. Now we want to formalize it. This is just a first step. We’re a small organization, so we won’t pretend we can bankroll every case that Trump’s retribution machine generates. Far from it. But that’s what crowd-sourcing courage is all about — filling the gaps where it’s needed most. We’ll direct support where it matters, and just as importantly, we’ll try to serve as a gateway, connecting targets to the wider network of groups able to help them in a time of need.
Like autocrats before him, Trump’s strategy depends on the cruel calculus of intimidation. He needs his targets to feel isolated and intimidated just enough to give in. If he does that, then he doesn’t need to prosecute all of his enemies. Because the others will self-censor or fold when they see what happens to the first group. Every time someone capitulates, the next abuse gets easier. On the other hand, every time someone stands up, the machine grinds a little slower for all of us.
I’ll never forget the strangers who came forward when we were at our lowest. They changed the trajectory of our lives, and they’re the reason I get to write these words today as a free man still in the fight. The Anti-Weaponization Fund is part of how we pay that forward.
You can chip in to support the fund here. If you don’t have financial resources to help, that’s okay, because we’re also inviting anyone to send notes of support to people in Trump’s crosshairs. We’ll rotate that list regularly, and we’ll get the messages directly to them to make sure they know other people are in their corner, whether it’s high-profile targets or ordinary Americans persecuted for protesting a lawless regime.
In America, we don’t submit to kings. But we must go further. We must resolve to stand beside the people who stand up. If we do that, no one will be left bowing down.
Your friend, in defiance,
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