President Donald Trump is reportedly reconsidering the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” described in his May 18 settlement agreement with the IRS. The fund was designed to compensate people who claim they were targeted by the Biden administration for improper political, personal, or ideological reasons. The brazenly unusual arrangement provoked vigorous objections from Republican legislators and ran into two judicial roadblocks last week.
According to Axios, an unnamed administration official said the fund “has become a distraction.” The official added that while “the president believes government was weaponized against people,” the fund “isn’t the time and vehicle” for addressing those grievances.
In other words, doling out taxpayer money to Trump’s allies under the pretext of a lawsuit that pitted the president against agencies he oversees turned out to be unexpectedly controversial.
The settlement that skipped the usual steps
Trump sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in January, alleging that an IRS contractor’s illegal leaking of his tax returns had caused at least $10 billion in damages. The estimate was improbable. Trump had also missed the statutory deadline for filing such claims. And it was not clear whether the IRS could be held liable for the crimes of someone it did not employ.
The Justice Department, charged with representing the IRS in court, never bothered to mount a defense.
That prompted Kathleen Williams, the federal judge overseeing the case in the Southern District of Florida, to question whether it involved a genuine controversy between adverse parties, as required for the lawsuit to proceed. Williams ordered briefing on that issue by May 20. The Justice Department dodged the order by announcing the settlement two days before the deadline.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche reportedly did not want to defend the suit in court, but also did not want to settle by paying Trump directly. According to The New York Times, Blanche thought ending the case by funneling taxpayer money straight to the president would be politically untenable. The Anti-Weaponization Fund was apparently the creative solution.
A fund with no independent oversight
The settlement agreement described the fund as a response to abuses of government power by Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents. The attorney general would appoint the five board members charged with doling out the money, all of whom would serve at the president’s pleasure. The board would determine its own procedures, which it could reveal or keep secret in its discretion. Its decisions would be recorded in a confidential written report to the attorney general. And it would cease processing claims by December 1, 2028, a month and a half before Trump leaves office.
At some point the plan to create a politically controlled, procedurally opaque, $1.8 billion fund with no independent oversight started to look like what it was.
Senate Republicans were not pleased
Trump, who initially described the January 6 riot as a heinous attack on the United States Capitol, has changed his mind so completely that he apparently did not anticipate how Republican legislators might react to the idea of rewarding the people who invaded their workplace that day. According to Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, the prospect that the fund could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer was absurd. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said a slush fund to pay people who assault cops was utterly stupid and morally wrong.
About 45 Republican senators attended a May 21 meeting where Blanche tried to defend the arrangement, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas reported. At least half of them were blasting the attorney general. They were pissed.
Two judges questioned the entire arrangement
Eight days later, Williams, who had closed Trump’s case on May 18 after he dropped his lawsuit, ordered briefing on the question of whether the settlement was a product of collusion and a fraud on the Court. She said she was responding to grievous allegations by 35 former federal judges who had urged her to reopen the case.
The former judges also highlighted a three-paragraph addendum that Blanche revealed on May 19. That extremely broad provision shielded Trump and the two sons who joined the lawsuit from civil or criminal liability for any tax violations or other federal offenses they might have committed prior to the agreement.
That same day, in response to a lawsuit challenging the Anti-Weaponization Fund, a federal judge in Virginia temporarily barred the Justice Department from taking any further steps to implement the plan. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the government to file a response to the lawsuit by this Friday.
The Justice Department signals a retreat
On Monday, the Justice Department issued a statement insisting the fund was open to anyone who believed they were unfairly targeted, regardless of political affiliation. That assurance of political neutrality was hard to believe, since Trump, who would have total control over the fund’s overseers, has described the intended beneficiaries as victims of an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration.
But the past tense and the final sentence seemed telling. The department said it would abide by the court’s ruling. Since compliance with a court order is not optional, that statement read like a signal that the Trump administration did not plan to continue defending the fund.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a White House official said the statement was the first step toward dropping the fund. But the official cautioned that President Trump could change his mind. GOP lawmakers said late Monday that they wanted a clear statement from the president before they would be satisfied.
On Tuesday, Blanche told a House appropriations subcommittee that the administration was not moving forward with the fund, period. He said he was not committing to put anything in writing. He added that Trump’s sweeping immunity deal would remain in place, saying nothing has changed with that.
What we’re watching
The Anti-Weaponization Fund was a plan to settle a lawsuit that was not a real lawsuit by creating a fund to compensate victims of an administration that is no longer in office, overseen by appointees who serve at the pleasure of the person who sued himself. It provoked rare public opposition from Senate Republicans, skepticism from two federal judges, and a noticeable absence of enthusiasm from the Justice Department tasked with defending it.
Blanche says the fund is dead but will not commit to writing that down. Trump’s immunity provision, which was grafted onto the settlement as an addendum and covers any federal offense he or his sons may have committed before the agreement, apparently survives.
The question now is whether the administration will formally abandon the fund in writing, what happens in the two pending court cases, and whether the immunity deal holds up under scrutiny when separated from the vehicle that delivered it.
Sources:
