The Trump administration set the stage for the largest heist in American history this week by creating an illegal fund of taxpayer dollars to compensate President Donald Trump and his allies—including the January 6 insurrectionists for being brought to justice after storming the Capitol in 2021.The Justice Department’s announcement that it will set a $1.8 billion slush fund to settle a $10 billion lawsuit from Trump himself against the IRS drew widespread outrage from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who are exploring ways to block the payments. It also drew criticism from Capitol Police officers who were injured on January 6, who have filed a lawsuit to challenge the legality of this compensation scheme. Brian Morrissey, the Treasury Department’s top lawyer, reportedly resigned after the fund was announced. Until now, Trump’s efforts to reward the insurrectionists who sought to illegally keep him in power in 2020 have been more unethical than illegal. Nobody seriously questioned the lawfulness of Trump’s decision to pardon more than 1,500 defendants in January 6–related cases, nor his decision to fire prosecutors who investigated those cases. Not everything that is morally wrong is necessarily illegal.Trump’s efforts to extract billions in federal tax dollars for personal gain—either for self-enrichment or for rewarding his militant supporters for their coup attempt—may have finally crossed the line. What’s more, he and his associates may have broken the laws in ways that even so-called “presidential immunity” bestowed upon him by the Supreme Court cannot protect him.When did Congress authorize the creation of this slush fund, you might ask? Well, it didn’t. Congress created a “permanent, indefinite appropriation” known as the Judgment Fund, to “pay many judicially and administratively ordered monetary awards against the United States.” This allows the federal government to comply with court rulings without constantly seeking individual appropriations from Congress each time a court awards compensation to a plaintiff deemed worthy of a legal remedy. Creating slush funds for a president’s insurrectionist co-conspirators is neither what Congress intended nor what it authorized.The Justice Department claimed that it was creating the Anti-Weaponization Fund as part of a settlement agreement from a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump himself in his personal capacity against the IRS, which he also runs in his official capacity as president. Overseeing the “negotiations” is acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was one of Trump’s own personal lawyers before his appointment as deputy attorney general.No law degree is necessary to find fault with this arrangement. As conservative legal scholars are fond of reminding us, the Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president of the United States. The president cannot shake hands with himself. Any agreement or contract that a president makes with himself binds only himself, and no one else.To that end, this “settlement” has no legal force beyond that which the Trump administration gives it. Trump’s lawsuit had been assigned to Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami. Last month, she called for additional briefing on whether the lawsuit was constitutionally valid. Article 3 requires courts to only hear “cases and controversies.” In this instance, this means that the parties must be adversarial to one another.Federal judges typically approve litigation settlements. After the two sides moved to dismiss the case, Williams pointedly noted in her order closing it that she had not agreed to any settlement, nor had one been filed with her.Because the Notice does not reference any settlement or include a stipulation of settlement, there is no settlement of record. Additionally, Defendants—federal agencies represented by the Department of Justice, which has an independent obligation to uphold the “public’s strong interest in knowing about the conduct of its Government and expenditure of its resources” and the “fair administration of justice,” 28 C.F.R. §§ 50.9, 50.23—neither submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed.The absence of judicial review is even more notable when it comes to an addendum to the “settlement” that was revealed on Tuesday after the case was formally closed. In the memo, Blanche purported to immunize Trump from any future prosecutions, claims, costs, and so on related to his past IRS tax returns, as well as his family members and his personal businesses. The Justice Department did not announce this decision; it was uncovered by Politico’s Josh Gerstein instead.There is no precedent for such brazen corruption in the annals of American history. Nothing else comes close. Watergate seems almost quaint now. Teapot Dome is practically a minor accounting error.