In mid-May 2026, social media users alleged that U.S. President Donald Trump said that "loyalty outranks law" while answering a question about a nearly $1.8 billion fund the Department of Justice created to compensate allies of the president who believe they were wrongly investigated and prosecuted.
According to posts on X (archived) and Threads (archived), a reporter asked Trump why taxpayers should pay "for the January 6ers," referencing criticism that the fund could benefit those who rioted on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.
Here's how the exchange between Trump and the reporter supposedly went, according to posts online:
Reporter: The DOJ has this new fund — $1.7 billion. Why should taxpayers pay for the January 6ers?
Trump: Because in my world, loyalty outranks law. They broke the rules for me, so you pay the bill for them. That's the transaction.
Snopes readers also wrote in to ask whether Trump actually said, "Loyalty outranks law," and searched the website to verify the quotation.
Many of the posts online included a clip apparently of Trump answering the reporter's question, thus implying Trump answered by saying, "Loyalty outranks law." That clip is from a real May 18, 2026, news conference with Trump, and the reporter did, in fact, ask him about the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund. However, Trump did not actually say the specific words shared by social media users.
As such, we have rated this quote as an incorrect attribution.
The exchange between Trump and the reporter — Liz Landers with "PBS News Hour" — is available in a short clip posted on C-SPAN's YouTube page. The White House also posted the full news conference on YouTube, with the relevant exchange happening at 21:30.
Here's what Trump actually said:
LANDERS: The Justice Department has this new fund that was announced today, $1.7 billion. Why should taxpayers pay for the January 6ers?
TRUMP: It's being very well-received, I have to tell you. I know very little about it. I wasn't involved in the whole creation of it, and the negotiation. But this is reimbursing people who were horribly treated, horribly treated.
It's anti-weaponization, they've been weaponized. They've been, in some cases, imprisoned wrongly. They've paid legal fees that they didn't have, they've gone bankrupt. Their lives have been destroyed. And they turned out to be right. I mean, it's, it was a terrible period of time in the history of our country, and they worked on it. I know the Justice Department has really been working on it very hard.
There's been numerous other occasions over the years where things like this have been done. But these were people that were weaponized and really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt, with corrupt people running it. And they're getting reimbursed for their legal fees and the other things that they had to suffer.
Another reporter — Nancy Cordes with CBS News — asked a follow-up question related to the fund at 27:56. However, Trump did not say, "Loyalty outranks law," while answering that question, either:
CORDES: I have a question on weaponization. Do you believe that people who committed violence against Capitol Hill police officers on Jan. 6 should be eligible for compensation from this DOJ fund? And are you or your family members going to be seeking compensation from that fund?
TRUMP: It'll all be dependent on a committee. A committee is being set up of very talented people, very highly respected people. I think it's a committee of five. And again, I didn't do this deal. It was told to me yesterday, they said they're doing something. I do believe there has to be compensation for people that were destroyed. You have families — absolutely destroyed — and it's all going to be determined by a committee of four or five people that are respected and very brilliant at what they do.