Transcript: Trump IRS Shakedown Takes Darker Turn: “Stinks...Illegal”

Source: The New Republic · Bias: Left

Summary

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 19 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.As you may have heard by now, the Justice Department just announced that it has reached an agreement with Donald Trump to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. Guess who controls the Justice Department? Donald Trump. The settlement will transfer nearly $1.8 billion to a new fund that reportedly will be controlled by Donald Trump. So in short, Trump effectively ordered his own DOJ to reach an agreement with him to transfer over a billion dollars in taxpayer funds into a new fund that he apparently controls and can use to reward allies. How is this possible? Is there any recourse? And also, isn’t this going to backfire? A new poll shows Trump is getting absolutely crushed on the economy. So good luck, Republicans, defending this new arrangement.We’re working through all this with legal expert Harry Litman, who writes for The New Republic and presides over the Talking Feds podcast. Harry, good to have you on.Harry Litman: Hey, good to be here, Greg. Thanks.Sargent: So let’s quickly set the stage. Back in January, Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion due to his tax returns getting leaked during his first term. Trump was in control of the IRS when that happened. So the lawsuit is baloney. But let’s put that aside for now. DOJ, which theoretically is supposed to be defending the IRS against Trump’s lawsuit, now reached an agreement with Trump to settle the suit. A judge was probably set to throw the suit out, but this new arrangement circumvents that. Harry, can you explain in really simple terms what just happened here with the settlement?Litman: Yes. Greg, the judge said, I want to hear from you why there is actually a lawsuit here, because the Constitution says you have to have two parties opposed to each other. Trump here looks like he’s controlling both sides. So by doing this so-called voluntary settlement, the DOJ hopes that it doesn’t have to face the music on saying whether it’s a real lawsuit or not. And they can just go around and create this fund without any use of the court.Sargent: This is all designed to circumvent the judge, right? The judge was about to rule potentially and say this lawsuit is bullshit—we’re throwing it out. By doing this settlement, now DOJ has circumvented the judge. Just to back up for context, there’s something that already exists called the Treasury Department Judgment Fund. Now this entity pays out money to victims of the U.S. government who successfully bring claims against the government. That fund is subject to various statutory restrictions and oversight since Congress created it. But now by reaching this settlement, DOJ has created a situation under which that particular fund pays nearly $1.8 billion to this separate new fund. And this new thing will supposedly be used to pay whoever Trump and his allies decide has been victimized by supposed weaponization of the government. But the key thing here, Harry, if I understand this correctly, is this new entity won’t be in the control of the U.S. government in any sense. Per further reporting, Trump will have total control over the fund’s members. It operates outside the U.S. government. It’s just a fund that’s been filled with taxpayer money that Trump controls. So this fund—Donald Trump hopes—will not be subject to any kind of congressional or constitutional constraints of any kind. Correct, Harry?Litman: Correct. Or maybe you could say, Greg, constraints that anybody will enforce, because there are constraints here. Even with what the DOJ is saying, Congress has permitted DOJ to settle, but only real lawsuits. So under the very statutory authority, Congress has appropriated a bunch of money and normally DOJ has a lot of discretion in how to use it. But the proper reading, I think, is it’s got to be for a real lawsuit, which this isn’t. The big question, though, will be who can oppose it?Sargent: Okay, Harry. So what you’re saying here is that this fund can only exist theoretically under the law—this new fund that Trump’s creating—if the lawsuit that Donald Trump and DOJ are settling with each other is a real lawsuit. But the rub becomes who decides whether the lawsuit is real or not. Does the judge have the authority to step in and say, this is not a real lawsuit, therefore the settlement is void, or not?Litman: And now we come to the question, who can make the claim? Who can say it’s not a real lawsuit? You can’t cheat the taxpayers out of $1.8 billion, especially to pay off January 6th offenders. And a quick aside here, Greg—we don’t even know the names of who will get money under this. They don’t have to say. It is illegal because Congress has said you can use this money only to actually settle real cases. And it’s a fake case.

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Transcript: Trump IRS Shakedown Takes Darker Turn: “Stinks...Illegal”
The New Republic

Transcript: Trump IRS Shakedown Takes Darker Turn: “Stinks...Illegal”

Left

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 19 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.As you may have heard by now, the Justice Department just announced that it has reached an agreement with Donald Trump to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. Guess who controls the Justice Department? Donald Trump. The settlement will transfer nearly $1.8 billion to a new fund that reportedly will be controlled by Donald Trump. So in short, Trump effectively ordered his own DOJ to reach an agreement with him to transfer over a billion dollars in taxpayer funds into a new fund that he apparently controls and can use to reward allies. How is this possible? Is there any recourse? And also, isn’t this going to backfire? A new poll shows Trump is getting absolutely crushed on the economy. So good luck, Republicans, defending this new arrangement.We’re working through all this with legal expert Harry Litman, who writes for The New Republic and presides over the Talking Feds podcast. Harry, good to have you on.Harry Litman: Hey, good to be here, Greg. Thanks.Sargent: So let’s quickly set the stage. Back in January, Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion due to his tax returns getting leaked during his first term. Trump was in control of the IRS when that happened. So the lawsuit is baloney. But let’s put that aside for now. DOJ, which theoretically is supposed to be defending the IRS against Trump’s lawsuit, now reached an agreement with Trump to settle the suit. A judge was probably set to throw the suit out, but this new arrangement circumvents that. Harry, can you explain in really simple terms what just happened here with the settlement?Litman: Yes. Greg, the judge said, I want to hear from you why there is actually a lawsuit here, because the Constitution says you have to have two parties opposed to each other. Trump here looks like he’s controlling both sides. So by doing this so-called voluntary settlement, the DOJ hopes that it doesn’t have to face the music on saying whether it’s a real lawsuit or not. And they can just go around and create this fund without any use of the court.Sargent: This is all designed to circumvent the judge, right? The judge was about to rule potentially and say this lawsuit is bullshit—we’re throwing it out. By doing this settlement, now DOJ has circumvented the judge. Just to back up for context, there’s something that already exists called the Treasury Department Judgment Fund. Now this entity pays out money to victims of the U.S. government who successfully bring claims against the government. That fund is subject to various statutory restrictions and oversight since Congress created it. But now by reaching this settlement, DOJ has created a situation under which that particular fund pays nearly $1.8 billion to this separate new fund. And this new thing will supposedly be used to pay whoever Trump and his allies decide has been victimized by supposed weaponization of the government. But the key thing here, Harry, if I understand this correctly, is this new entity won’t be in the control of the U.S. government in any sense. Per further reporting, Trump will have total control over the fund’s members. It operates outside the U.S. government. It’s just a fund that’s been filled with taxpayer money that Trump controls. So this fund—Donald Trump hopes—will not be subject to any kind of congressional or constitutional constraints of any kind. Correct, Harry?Litman: Correct. Or maybe you could say, Greg, constraints that anybody will enforce, because there are constraints here. Even with what the DOJ is saying, Congress has permitted DOJ to settle, but only real lawsuits. So under the very statutory authority, Congress has appropriated a bunch of money and normally DOJ has a lot of discretion in how to use it. But the proper reading, I think, is it’s got to be for a real lawsuit, which this isn’t. The big question, though, will be who can oppose it?Sargent: Okay, Harry. So what you’re saying here is that this fund can only exist theoretically under the law—this new fund that Trump’s creating—if the lawsuit that Donald Trump and DOJ are settling with each other is a real lawsuit. But the rub becomes who decides whether the lawsuit is real or not. Does the judge have the authority to step in and say, this is not a real lawsuit, therefore the settlement is void, or not?Litman: And now we come to the question, who can make the claim? Who can say it’s not a real lawsuit? You can’t cheat the taxpayers out of $1.8 billion, especially to pay off January 6th offenders. And a quick aside here, Greg—we don’t even know the names of who will get money under this. They don’t have to say. It is illegal because Congress has said you can use this money only to actually settle real cases. And it’s a fake case.

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