Justice Department announces nearly $1.8B fund to compensate Trump allies in a deal to drop IRS suit
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The Trump administration has announced the creation a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate allies of the Republican president who believe they have been unjustly investigated and prosecuted.

The Trump administration on Monday announced the creation a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies of the Republican president who believe they were mistreated by the Biden administration Justice Department.

The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was announced by the Justice Department as part of a deal to resolve President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in announcing the fund in a statement that it was “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.”

Democrats and government watchdogs immediately pledged to fight what they called a “corrupt” and unprecedented resolution, warning that the arrangement would unjustly enrich people close to the president with taxpayer dollars and open the door to meritless claims of political persecution.

Trump’s lawyers disclosed the dismissal of the case in a filing Monday in federal court in Florida, where the president sued earlier this year.

The fund would represent not only a highly unorthodox resolution but also a further demonstration of the administration’s eagerness to reward allies who before Trump came to power were investigated and in some cases charged and convicted. Most notably, the president on his first day back in office pardoned or commuted the sentences of supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His Justice Department since then has approved payouts to supporters entangled in the Trump-Russia investigation and investigated and prosecuted some of his perceived adversaries.

“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

Trump’s attorneys suggested in their court filing seeking to dismiss the case that the resolution would not be reviewable by a judge. But a group of 93 members of Congress filed a brief teeing up a challenge.

  • NekoKoneko@lemmy.world
    11·
    2 days ago

    The articles are doing a disservice by treating DOJ and Trump’s actions to “settle” the “case” (quotations since neither is legitimate) as if it was already done. No, Trump is still trying to do it. It’s a common tactic of Trump’s team to act lawlessly and make people feel powerless and resigned that it’s already done. This particular criminal looting is not beyond intervention yet.

    It least it seems, this needs to be approved by a judge who has not yet ruled on the requests to dismiss the case (and thereby allow the settlement to proceed):

    Nearly 100 Democrats in the House of Representatives signed onto a legal brief urging a judge to block what they described as an unprecedented resolution that they said would unjustly enrich people close to the president with taxpayer dollars and open the door to meritless claims of political persecution. … Trump’s attorneys suggested in their court filing seeking to dismiss the case that the resolution would not be reviewable by a judge. But a group of 93 members of Congress filed a brief teeing up a challenge. … Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, an advocacy group that filed an earlier brief, said in response to the dismissal: “This case was always a sham, and another ploy by the President to access taxpayer funds to line his pockets.”

    The headlines basically are saying, this is a deal, it’s done. The last quote above suggests there is a “dismissal” but elsewhere clearly implies the dismissal request is pending. A reader may feel like this already happened and therefore there’s nothing they can do about it. And indeed, it may happen. But the judge already said she is looking at the conflict of interest issue:

    Kathleen Williams, the judge heading the case, had assigned a group of attorneys to determine whether there was a conflict in the case since, as sitting president, he was suing “entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.”