Donald Trump and his partner in crime, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, have constructed what may be the most brazen heads-I-win-tails-you-lose arrangement in the history of American government. And to be clear about who is on the short end of both sticks: It’s the American public, you and me. We’re the ultimate suckers in Trump-Blanche world.The $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund was created through a settlement agreement purporting to resolve Trump’s claims that a contractor for the IRS unlawfully disclosed his tax information (as indeed he did, but that doesn’t alter the multiple fatal failings with the lawsuit, including its unconstitutional collusive character). The agreement asserts that the fund “is not taxable income as to Plaintiffs, who receive no economic benefit from this Settlement Agreement.” Elsewhere, the document declares that Trump is not receiving “damages of any kind.” This framing is doing enormous legal work. It is also a fiction.Blanche and Trump (let’s just call them Blump) have to have it both ways for the sinister arrangement to be even arguably legal. They need it to be a settlement because that is what gives the fund its veneer of legitimacy, and its access to federal dollars. A settlement of genuine legal claims provides the necessary hook for disbursing nearly $2 billion in public money.But they equally need the no-economic-benefit fiction, because if Trump benefits, he may well have taxable income, and the whole arrangement starts to look like what it is: a president using the government he controls to enrich himself and his political movement, reviled by many if not most Americans, at public expense. Among multiple other problems, that is the antithesis of Blump’s core constitutional responsibility to the public.In fact, the agreement is not a bona-fide settlement. It also clearly benefits Trump.Start with the settlement. To access the fund Congress appropriated for DOJ to use to settle cases, the executive branch essentially must certify that there is an actual legal claim that could have been brought and adjudicated in court. This claim cannot clear that bar, because, as U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams perceived, the entire lawsuit is a product of collusion between the plaintiff and the government he controls. Trump sued an IRS that answers to Trump, both legally and practically. And the IRS, after preparing a memorandum urging the DOJ to defend the lawsuit as it has successfully in similar cases, signed the agreement through its “Chief Executive Officer,” Trump appointee Frank Bisignano. That meant it officially affirmed the statement that the fund corpus is not taxable income and that Trump receives no economic benefit. The fox didn’t just guard the henhouse. It signed a sworn statement that no hens were harmed.Now the benefit. We can begin, before analyzing the specifics, by asking whether there is a single act Trump has undertaken as president, ever, that wasn’t intended to benefit himself. Here, there are various and substantial benefits, but the overriding one, which the coverage has so far largely ignored, is the official imprimatur on Trump’s bottomless obsession with rewriting and falsifying the past. The fund’s entire premise—embedded in the recitals, baked into the eligibility criteria, woven through every page—is that January 6 was not an insurrection; rather, it was an act of lawful political protest met with government persecution.And then there is the addendum, which plainly provides an enormous benefit to Trump.One day after the court dismissed the case, Blanche signed a separate order on attorney general letterhead. It purports to release, waive, and forever discharge Trump, his family members, and his companies from any tax liability, including for returns filed before the settlement’s effective date. It is in essence a golden forever pass, with no court supervision, no pending case, and no legal instrument authorizing it.This is a tax amnesty worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, issued unilaterally, the day after the lawsuit it purports to implement was already dismissed.The addendum is utterly squirrely about whether it’s part of the consideration for the settlement. It begins by noting the fact of the agreement and then simply recites this valuable waiver in a separate paragraph. Blump is trying to have it both ways, for obvious reasons.If the addendum is untethered legally to the agreement, that means it’s a freestanding huge benefit to Trump, paid directly by the public, which receives not even a fig leaf of something in return. That means it is also unconnected to any legal justification that the settlement might provide. It stands alone as a freestanding gift of public money, and forgiveness of public debt, from a president to himself.If on the other hand it’s part of the bogus “deal,” the problems for Blump quickly proliferate.
