Jim Acosta on DOJ anti-weaponization fund: 'Shouldn't I be compensated?' [View all]
Source: The Hill
05/21/26 10:27 PM ET
Former CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta on Thursday questioned whether he should receive compensation from the Department of Justices (DOJ) anti-weaponization fund. [President] Trump seized my White House press pass back in 2018, violating my First and Fifth Amendment rights, all part of a sustained government effort to destroy my career, Acosta wrote on his Substack. Shouldnt I be compensated?
Acostas entry on Substack is written to address Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and submit his claim for the fund. Having been on the receiving end of some first-term Trump government weaponization, I think I have a pretty good case for some cold, hard slush fund cash, Acosta wrote. Preferably in $100s. From the sound of it, just about anybody can apply. So here it goes.
Acosta recounts having his White House press pass taken after a press conference in November 2018. He tells Blanche that he challenged Trump about his claims of a migrant caravan heading to the southern U.S. border that amounted to an invasion.' Trump called him the enemy of the people and a rude, terrible person.
Perhaps you saw it on TV, he continues. As I attempted to ask a question of the president, who was blowing his top, a White House intern tried to grab the microphone out of my hand. It was, in a word, intense.. U.S. Secret Service officers asked Acosta to relinquish his press pass shortly thereafter.
Read more: https://thehill.com/media/5890632-acosta-doj-anti-weaponization-fund/