More than a thousand people were convicted of various criminal activities for their participation in the attack on the Capitol in 2021. But on the first day of his second term in office, President Donald Trump granted clemency to all of them, essentially handing them a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

But some of the criminals are not happy with the "free" part: They want to be paid for their crimes.

Five of the released felons sued the government "to seek redress for the multiple violations of their constitutional rights perpetrated by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation." And for having to suffer the alleged violations of their constitutional rights, the plaintiffs said that they wanted the government to pay them a cool hundred million dollars.

If the ex-felons win their lawsuit, that hundred million dollars will be paid to them from the US Treasury. Which is our money. It's my money. And it's your money.

The big problem is that the government is on their side. The government, in the persons of President Trump and his Attorney General Pam Bondi, wants to pay the criminals a hundred million dollars of our money.

And so I asked the court to keep a close eye on the case and to intervene if the Justice Department decides to "settle" (that is, to give up without a fight) or if they put on such a half-hearted defense that the jury has no choice but to award our money to the plaintiffs. I put my request in the form of what is commonly referred to as a Friend of the Court Brief, which is more formally known as an Amicus Brief (which is basically the same thing in Latin).

However, it turns out that courts don't have to automatically accept Amicus Briefs: You have to ask for "leave" (permission) to file one. And the strange thing is that you have to file your "Motion for Leave" and your "Amicus Brief" at the same time. I understand that it may take about a month for the court to decide whether to accept my Amicus Brief -- and if they decide to accept it, they'll already have it, which is incredibly convenient.

But from everything I've read, I think it's unlikely that the court will accept my Amicus Brief, because I have no special expertise in the area: I'm just a guy who's trying to stop the government from helping a bunch of thugs steal a hundred million dollars that belongs to me and a few hundred million of my fellow American citizens. I think there's a much greater chance that the court would pay attention to the request I presented in my Amicus Brief if other, more prestigious people (or organizations) submitted the same request.

So: If you know someone who, say, works for some kind of public-interest organization or maybe for a law firm that likes to get involved in this kind of issue -- or if you work for that kind of organization or firm -- please take a look at the Amicus Brief I submitted, and please consider submitting one of your own. You're welcome to use any of my ideas, and you can even steal any or all of my words. It's for a good cause.