A pardoned Capitol riot defendant wants her restitution money back. The Justice Department wants to keep it

After the protracted demise of the $1.776 billion fund meant to pay perceived victims of government lawfare, prosecutors say they don’t have to give a now-pardoned January 6, 2021, defendant her restitution money back.

It’s all because she never appealed her conviction. Prosecutors have taken a narrow approach to who is, and who is not, eligible for such a refund or waiver for the fines that were built into January 6 defendants’ sentences to help fund repairs to the Capitol building from damage done during the attack. The Justice Department’s fight to keep the $2000 in fines paid by riot defendant Felicia Konold — an Arizona woman who pleaded guilty to obstructing law enforcement during the attack — stands in contrast to the administration’s controversial effort to give payouts to the same group of people who Trump has said were victims of DOJ weaponization. CNN attempted to reach Konold for comment. As part of a contorted settlement between the IRS and President Donald Trump over his leaked tax information in 2020, the Justice Department announced earlier this year it would establish the nearly $1.8 billion fund for those alleged victims of weaponized prosecutions in the past. The fund was quickly panned by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, and became a sticking point in the long battle over Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s effort to get confirmed by the Senate to formally take the top spot at DOJ. Lawmakers focused on the notion that the fund could be used to give payments to those who attacked the Capitol and forced the entire Congress to evacuate for safety. Blanche, who announced the fund would be nixed shortly after its formation, eventually ceded to demands by a small contingent of Republican senators to announce in a sworn declaration the fund was dead.