“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.
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Trump’s new “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is the latest example of the ability of this administration to treat the federal government and taxpayer dollars as a personal plaything. It is a massive and utterly corrupt action that is happening right out in the open. And the degree to which enough people will care remains to be seen. But for a candidate who claimed to care about his voters, this is just another example of how everything is all about him. Let’s just say this slush fund is not going to bring inflation down, nor will it end the Iran War. But it will likely reward those who engaged in insurrection in Trump’s name.
Here are the basics from the NYT: Justice Dept. Sets Up $1.8 Billion Fund That Could Funnel Money to Trump Allies.
The fund was announced shortly after Mr. Trump withdrew his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service demanding at least $10 billion in damages for the unauthorized disclosure of his tax information.
In addition to withdrawing his suit against the I.R.S., Mr. Trump will also drop separate administrative claims. Those include his demand that the government pay him $230 million for investigations into his 2016 campaign’s potential ties to Russia and into his handling of classified documents after he left office.
[…]
Mr. Trump’s decision to drop his suit against the I.R.S. appeared to be intended to strip Judge Kathleen M. Williams, who had been overseeing the I.R.S. case in the Southern District of Florida, of her appointed role in approving a formal settlement agreement. By dismissing the case in its entirety, Mr. Trump was able to reach an agreement with his own appointees without risking the rebuke of an impartial and independent arbiter. Judge Williams, tacitly acknowledging her hands were tied, accepted the president’s dismissal of the suit and formally closed the case by the end of the day.
[…]
Money for the fund will come from a special, unlimited account available to the Justice Department for settling lawsuits. That pool of money gives the department the authority to make monetary settlements without needing approval from Congress. A group of five people, selected by Mr. Blanche, will oversee the operations of the fund, though Mr. Trump can fire its members at will. It will stop processing claims on Dec. 15, 2028, weeks before Mr. Trump leaves office.
Moreover, all this will be done without any transparency or legal review. Instead, the five appointees, all of whom serve at Trump’s pleasure, can do what they want, how they want. As Tad DeHaven and Molly Nixon explain in a piece from the Cato Institute: Trump’s Anti-Weaponization Fund Is a (Another) Slush Fund.
The fund determines its own procedures for submitting, receiving, processing, granting, or denying claims. It may make those procedures public “in whole or in part,” at its discretion. It’s required to provide confidential reports to the Attorney General identifying claimants who receive relief and the nature of that relief. But the agreement does not establish anything like normal public reporting, independent review, or transparent standards.
The settlement also says there shall be “no appeal, arbitration, or judicial review” of claims, offers, or other determinations made by the fund. A denied claimant may still seek relief elsewhere if otherwise allowed by law. But the AWF’s decisions are insulated from review.
And Trump gets to decide where any leftover money goes:
Then there’s the matter of leftover money. The fund stops processing claims by December 1, 2028. Any remaining balance after December 15, 2028, must be transferred before January 1, 2029, to the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, or another “appropriate” federal government account designated by the president.
That provision is hard to square with the claim that the fund is merely compensating victims of unlawful government conduct. If the money is truly tied to the projected value of future claims, unspent funds shouldn’t be diverted by the president to another government account. The timing only reinforces this concern as the redirection would occur in the final weeks of Trump’s second term.
So the settlement creates a nearly $1.8 billion fund, gives executive-branch appointees broad control over eligibility and procedures, allows opacity, blocks review of fund determinations, and lets leftover taxpayer money be redirected to another account chosen by the president.
That is not how neutral legal redress should be structured, but it is how one would design a political slush fund.
In addition, the settlement bars the federal government from prosecuting Trump or his two eldest sons for any tax case in the past, which is not only a preemptive pardon of sorts for any past financial crimes linked to taxes, but it likely saves Trump at least $100 million in IRS fines.
Not only is all of this grotesquely corrupt as a general matter, and clearly provides a gateway for any number of corrupt practices, such as using the fund to bribe, say, election officials and other political actors, it is clearly going to be used to further reward people who did violence in his name on January 6, 2021. As CNN reports: ‘This is long overdue’: Jan. 6 rioters and election deniers celebrate Trump’s $1.8 billion compensation fund.
Such a fund could be used to pay off rioters and insurrectionists who attempt to disrupt the midterms.
Ultimately, given the opacity of the process, what stops this group from giving anyone any amount of money for any reason as long as they file a “claim”?
All of this is truly staggering, but it is also the kind of thing that is hard to get people to understand, and worse, it all appears technically legal despite the obvious self-dealing of it all.
