A MAGA lawyer has dramatically returned to working on behalf of the Jan. 6 rioters soon after news of Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund emerged.
Mark McCloskey, best known for pointing his gun at Black Lives Matter protesters outside his St. Louis home in 2020, has spent more than a year trying to secure compensation from the government for those who stormed the Capitol in 2021.
In April, McCloskey announced in a letter to his Jan. 6 clients that “due to personal reasons, I am unable to continue this fight at this time” and that the claims would instead be handled by lawyer Peter Ticktin, with whom he had teamed up on the Capitol riot cases.
However, one day after ABC News first reported that Trump would drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for the creation of a slush fund to pay apparent victims of the “weaponization” of the justice system, McCloskey wrote a new letter announcing that reports of his departure had been greatly exaggerated.
In the May 15 letter, McCloskey revealed he had been diagnosed with a “condition which would not give me enough time to complete my work for you.” The condition in question was a terminal lung disease, The Bulwark reported.
McCloskey added that his prognosis “is not as bleak as first indicated,” and that he is once again ready to try to secure money for those who took part in the Jan. 6 attack.
“There is a reported possible ‘Weaponization Fund’ which sounds a great deal like what we have been pushing for the last year,” he wrote while announcing his dramatic comeback.
Ticktin blasted McCloskey over the convenient timing of his announcement that he was well enough to return to work.
“I didn’t realize finding out you can make money can cure cancer, but apparently you can,” Ticktin told The Bulwark.
In a pointed letter to his clients over the weekend, Ticktin added: “I never stopped representing you, money or no money. I would never quit.”
The Trump administration announced the creation of the $1.776 billion compensation scheme for those who claim they were victims of the alleged “weaponization” of the Department of Justice during the Biden years.
The slush fund was created as part of an agreement in which the president agreed to drop a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over claims that the agency failed to prevent the leak of his tax returns to the press in 2020.
Dominic Box, who was convicted on two felony counts of civil disorder and four misdemeanors for his role in the storming of the Capitol, told The Bulwark that McCloskey would receive 30 percent of any reparations connected to the Jan. 6 attack. McCloskey dismissed the figure as “incorrect.”
McCloskey was mocked online for announcing his return when Trump’s $1.8 billion “weaponization” slush fund emerged.
“Jesus healed Mark McCloskey’s terminal illness, just in time to collect his contingency fee,” SatireAP, an X account that routinely posts about Jan. 6, wrote to its 53,000 followers.
The Daily Beast has contacted McCloskey’s office for comment.
