President Donald Trump reportedly is reconsidering the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” described in his May 18 settlement agreement with the IRS, which was designed to compensate people who claim they were targeted by the Biden administration for “improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons.” That brazenly corrupt scheme, which provoked vigorous objections from Republican legislators and ran into two judicial roadblocks last week, “has become a distraction,” an unnamed administration official told Axios.
Although “the president believes government was weaponized against people,” that official added, “this 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. It’s a mystery why Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche ever thought that plan was a good idea.
Trump sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in January, preposterously alleging that an IRS contractor’s illegal leaking of his tax returns had caused “at least” $10 billion in damages. In addition to offering an improbable estimate of the injury he had suffered, Trump missed the statutory deadline for filing such claims. And although he argued that the IRS had failed to properly oversee its contractors, it was not clear whether the agency could be held liable for the crimes of someone it did not employ. But the Justice Department, which was charged with representing the IRS in court, never bothered to mount a defense.
That failure underlined the blatant conflicts of interest created by the case, both sides of which were represented by lawyers who work for Trump. “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” Trump acknowledged a few days after filing the lawsuit.
That bizarre situation 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 that order by announcing the settlement, which Williams never had a chance to review, two days before the deadline.
Blanche “did not want the Justice Department to go into court and fight the suit, as it normally would, but also did not want to settle it by paying Mr. Trump directly,” The New York Times reports. Blanche reportedly thought “ending the case by funneling taxpayer money straight to the president” would be “politically untenable.” But if Blanche was trying to avoid a political backlash, he failed abysmally.
The result of Trump’s admitted self-dealing was not pretty. The settlement agreement described the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which had nothing to do with Trump’s claims against the IRS, as a response to abuses of “government power” by “Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents.” It said 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.
Although the Justice Department said “there are no partisan requirements to file a claim,” Trump’s description of the fund belied that assurance. “I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!” he explained. Those “others” presumably included the 1,600 or so Capitol rioters whom Trump pardoned on the first day of his second term, since he had repeatedly portrayed them as victims of politically motivated government persecution.
Trump, who initially described the 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. The prospect that the fund “could potentially compensate someone who assaulted a police officer” is “absurd,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.) remarked after the settlement was announced. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) likewise said “a slush fund to pay people who assault cops” was “utterly stupid” and “morally wrong.”
While Tillis and McConnell are more inclined to publicly criticize Trump than most of their Republican colleagues, they were by no means alone in expressing dismay at that “slush fund.” About 45 Republican senators attended a May 21 meeting where Blanche tried to defend the arrangement, Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) reported, and “at least half of them were blasting the attorney general. They were pissed.”
Eight days later, Williams, who 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.
Those former judges, who had been appointed by presidents of both major parties, argued that Trump “voluntarily dismissed this litigation solely to avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit that ‘was collusive from the start’ and was only filed to provide the imprimatur of legality for an unlawful settlement,” Williams noted. Although Trump’s claims “were ‘clearly untimely’ and therefore untenable,” they said, the government’s lawyers did not even try to defend against them, “despite their active opposition to nearly identical claims in other litigation.”
The former judges also highlighted a “three-paragraph addendum” that Blanche revealed on May 19, which provided “extraordinary benefits” to Trump. That “extremely broad provision,” they noted, 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.
Williams ordered the government to file a response to these allegations by June 15. She said the brief should address “the charges of collusion and whether the Parties are
truly adverse,” “the assertion that the dismissal in this case was premised on deception
by the Parties,” and “the question of whether the case should be reopened because the
Court was the ‘victim of a fraud.'”
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.
After Brinkema issued that order, the Justice Department said it “remains extremely confident in the legality of the Anti-Weaponization Fund,” adding, “We will not allow the policy preferences of judges to interfere with our efforts to provide restitution to victims of lawfare.” In an X post on Monday, the Justice Department reiterated that it “disagrees strongly” with Brinkema’s order. It said the Anti-Weaponization Fund aimed to “make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to so many people.” It added that the fund “was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise.”
Again, that assurance of political neutrality is 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—”was open”—seems telling. So does the last sentence of that post: “The Department will abide by the Court’s ruling.”
Since compliance with a court order is not optional, that statement might be a signal that the Trump administration does not plan to continue defending the Anti-Weaponization Fund, especially since the Justice Department said nothing about doing so. “A White House official said the statement was the first step toward dropping the fund,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “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.”
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