Democrats condemn ‘slush fund’ as Trump eyes possible settlement with the IRS
During Donald Trump’s first term, a former IRS contractor named Charles Littlejohn gained access to the president’s tax returns and shared the documents the Republican had been desperate to hide. Littlejohn was caught, charged, convicted and sent to prison.
Earlier this year, however, Trump decided the criminal penalty wasn’t enough. Indeed, the Republican filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the federal tax agency in February, setting up an unprecedented situation in which a president sought a massive payout from the same executive branch he leads.
Shortly after the president filed the radical (and by any fair measure, frivolous) lawsuit, he told reporters that he assumed “nobody would care” if he received a giant check from the government because he and his team were “thinking about doing something for charity.”
More than three months later, as settlement talks between the agency and the Republican’s lawyers continue, money for “charity” doesn’t appear to be the principal goal. ABC News reported:
President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have the total authority to hand out approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system, including the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as well as potentially entities associated with President Trump himself.
The arrangement, ABC News noted, “would be an unprecedented use of taxpayer dollars with little oversight.”
The same report (which has not been independently verified by MS NOW) added that Trump wouldn’t personally receive any money from the arrangement but that (a) the deal would nevertheless create a pool of money for his team to use at its discretion; and (b) “entities associated with Trump” would not be “explicitly barred” under the deal from seeking funds.
While the structure of the proposed compensation fund is not yet clear, it would apparently resemble a victim compensation fund — despite the absence of any actual victims. Moreover, the suggestion that the Biden administration “weaponized” federal law enforcement is a conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence.
The Justice Department and the IRS didn’t comment to ABC News, while a spokesperson for the president’s legal team issued a generic statement about holding “those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”
Time will tell whether this scheme comes to fruition, but if the reporting is correct, it sets the stage for one of the most corrupt presidential arrangements in American history.
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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