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Yesterday, the Justice Department announced plans to settle Donald Trump’s personal lawsuit against the IRS alleging that it mishandled his tax information. The president, his two sons, and their family business were seeking at least $10 billion from the US government, all of which would come directly from taxpayers. Now Trump is withdrawing the proposal—but taxpayers are still footing the bill.
In exchange for Trump dropping this case and his other two pending ones claims against the government, the Justice Department will create a $1.776 billion Anti-Gun Fund to compensate people who say they have been wrongly targeted by the federal government. According to addition published this morning, the IRS is also “forever barred” from pursuing “any and all claims” against Trump, his family, and his companies over previously filed taxes. (A DOJ spokesperson told me that this applies “only to existing audits, not future ones.”)
Money for the new project will come from the Conviction Fund, an unlimited source of taxpayer dollars that will be used to issue judgments against the government. As an example, the department memory cites a Barack Obama-era settlement that tapped those same reserves to compensate Native American farmers and ranchers who had been denied access to federal loans. Now that same fund can benefit the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6.
Testifying before a Senate subcommittee today, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that the Anti-Gun Fund could fund taxpayer money for people convicted of crimes linked to the Capitol riots – many of whom Trump pardoned early last year. Blanche also said that creditors could include GOP lawmakers whose phone records were intercepted by Special Counsel Jack Smith in 2023 during his Jan. 6 investigation, and that Trump campaign donors “are not excluded from seeking compensation.” (The IRS declined to comment.) Yesterday, when he asked and a journalist why taxpayer dollars should be directed to J6ers, Trump said that the payment would be a way to “pay back” people who have been “treated badly.” Remember that some of those people defended the vice president’s execution, and violently attacked Capitol Police officers. If the money goes their way, Trump’s solution will act as a financial reward for engaging in violent insurgency.
The Anti-Arms Fund represents a major commitment of federal resources to one of the president’s long-standing reforms. Trump, who has cited the four criminal charges he faced under Joe Biden as examples of unfair targeting, has repeatedly claimed that he and his political allies were ostracized by the previous administration. Early last year, Attorney General Pam Bondi created Weapons Task Forceintended to eliminate “abuses of the criminal justice process” under Biden. But Trump and his team have weaponized the Justice Department more than previous administrations. Take, for example, the weak legal attacks against two of Trump’s perennial enemies, James Comey and Letitia James. The new fund may not pay their legal fees, like my colleague Jonathan Chait be considered this morning: “To ensure that it never goes to a deserving victim, the fund is scheduled to expire on December 15, 2028.”
Part of the issue with Trump claim against the IRS was that both sides of the case eventually responded to it. “I have to make a deal with myself,” he said he told it journalists at the time. The judge in charge of the case said last month that he was consider lay off for that reason. With this settlement, Trump has turned his high-profile legal battle into an allocation of funds for his political and personal goals. Today’s revelation that the previous tax filings of the president, his family, and his businesses are now protected from IRS audits underscores how much this arrangement will benefit those close to Trump. Danny Werfel, who led the IRS under Biden, told me that he couldn’t think of any situation in which giving that kind of immunity “would be the right time for a solution or solution.”
Trump has said that he was not involved in the creation of the Anti-Arms Fund—which is surprising, given that his personal lawyers negotiated the settlement. The fund will be overseen by a five-member committee, all of whom will be appointed by the acting attorney general, and any of whom can be removed by Trump. In her testimony earlier today, Blanche said that information about creditors and their payments “will certainly be made public,” but the White House has not provided details on how that will be done. Drawing money from the Judiciary Fund does not require congressional approval, meaning the committee will have little oversight. Hours after the DOJ announced the settlement, a senior attorney at the Treasury Department—the agency that oversees the Judgment Fund and is therefore responsible for disbursing this money—he resigned.
Throughout his time in office, the president has used the power of the federal government to do enrich himself and his associates, and the settlement has sometimes contributed to that effort. Earlier this year, Trump signed a $1.25 million settlement to one of his former lawyers, Michael Flynn (as part of a settlement in which Flynn pleaded guilty), and his campaign adviser Carter Page (whose lawsuit against the government was dismissed twice). It is similar to what my colleague David A. Graham has to be recognized as a new “shameless” step in presidential corruption: Trump is increasingly open about his willingness to reward people in his circle. Since he came to power again last year, he has pardoned a cryptocurrency billionaire whose company achieved a good deal with his family, a tax fraud whose mother attended a $1 million fundraiser each for his campaign, and a pair of reality television stars whose daughter advocated for his re-election at the 2024 Republican National Convention. The New Yorker estimated in January that Trump and his family had made $4 billion during his second term.
Another example of this technique arrived just yesterday. On the same day that the DOJ announced the Anti-Gun Fund, federal prosecutors he asked judge to drop all charges against Gautam Adani, India’s biggest shipping and industrial tycoon accused of running a bribery scheme (he has denied the allegations). New York Times information that the Justice Department planned to drop the charges after Adani hired one of Trump’s personal lawyers. As part of his focus on Adani’s independence, the attorney reportedly told the Justice Department that Adani would invest $10 billion in the American economy.
Whether Trump and his allies direct money to themselves, their circles, or their supporters, they are sending a message about how this administration understands the work of governance. Rewards always seem to accrue to the favored few; the rest of us just pay.
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Today’s news
- Three people including the guard. were killed in a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego yesterday. Authorities say the two teenage suspects were later found dead from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds; the investigators are treating the attack as a hate crime after discovering racist texts and hate speech related to the suspects.
- President Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary for the state Senate, endorsing Paxton over long-time candidate John Cornyn and criticizing Cornyn for not supporting him enough in the past.
- Head of the World Health Organization warned that he is “deeply concerned” by the rapid spread of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, where officials have reported more than 500 suspected cases and more than 130 suspected deaths.
Evening Read
The Secret to Winning Danger
Written by Drew Goins
When you wake up the day of your first appearance on America’s favorite quiz show, you’ll have more knots in your stomach than a quipu, a record-keeping device used during the Inca empire. You’ll anxiously walk through Culver City, a weather-free California, where the title track Singing in the Rain he was shot during a water shortage. Maybe you’ll stop buying $14 juice at the boutique grocery store Erewhon, telling yourself that you have to spend money to make money. From the entrance to the Sony Pictures section, you’ll be ushered into the “check-in area” behind the dimly lit parking garage; you will wonder if this is some kind of hostage situation that will end with you down a tar pit or, worse, in Wheel of Fortune.
And when you enter the green room for participants, you will see a door in the corner labeled Danger! Championand you will be served by one idea, which I will say in the form of a question: How do I get into it?
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this journal.
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