Donald Trump sued agencies he controls and extracted a deal from his own Justice Department. Now he is threatening to keep Todd Blanche as acting attorney general unless two Republican senators let him revive the most brazen part of it.
The deal proposed a $1.776 billion fund for people claiming government “weaponization”. A separate order purported to protect Trump, his family, and affiliated businesses from tax enforcement involving returns filed before May 18. On Saturday, AP reported that Trump threatened to push the fund forward if Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis continued blocking Blanche’s nomination.
The settlement agreement is a record of public corruption. The president’s private lawyers negotiated with officials who had represented him or his associates, now running the Justice Department, to spend public money on his political cause and protect his family from the tax collector.
A real crime became an excuse
Trump’s tax information was stolen. That was a grave abuse of government access, and nobody needs to pretend otherwise to condemn what followed. Former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty to disclosing protected returns and received five years in prison. The government had a duty to prosecute him, secure its systems, and answer legitimate claims from the people he harmed.
Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization sued the IRS and Treasury on January 29, seeking at least $10 billion. A valid injury still has to pass through the same legal rules that govern everybody else. A plaintiff must sue on time, prove damages authorized by law, and face a defendant that actually defends the public’s interests.
Trump waited until he was back in the White House. His lawyers then negotiated with the executive branch he commands. When Judge Kathleen Williams ordered briefing on whether the two sides were genuinely adverse, the plaintiffs dismissed the case and the Justice Department announced its deal.
Williams later found that the plaintiffs acted in bad faith. Her order said Trump had a legal right to sue over the disclosure, but any remedy remained subject to the ordinary rules governing lawsuits. The case was used to obtain benefits that the litigation itself could not support.
The fund was built for political discretion
The official agreement says Trump and the other named plaintiffs would receive an apology and no direct damages. That fact is central to the administration’s defense. It also exposes why the proposed fund makes no sense as a settlement.
The agreement admits that the $1.776 billion did not represent the value of the plaintiffs’ claims. It was based on the projected value of claims by future people who were not parties to the lawsuit. Treasury says the Judgment Fund is available for settlements tied to actual or imminent litigation when a judgment on the merits would be payable from the fund. Trump’s deal tried to turn that standing appropriation into a new benefits program for grievances the law never defined.
Its structure invited political favoritism. The attorney general would appoint five members to decide claims, and the president could remove any of them without cause. The panel could choose how much of its procedures to reveal. Its reports to the attorney general would be confidential. An applicant needed only to assert a legal claim of “lawfare” or “weaponization,” two labels left undefined. Time spent in federal custody could increase an award. The decisions would have no appeal or judicial review.
AP reported that the commission never formed, no claims were accepted, and no money was paid. A federal judge blocked the fund indefinitely after Blanche told Congress it was dead but never rescinded the order. Trump’s new threat has demonstrated why verbal assurances were worthless.
The tax order served the family
The named plaintiffs were barred from taking fund money directly. The next day’s tax order offered a different kind of benefit.
Blanche signed a one page order purporting to make the United States “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing claims, examinations, reviews, damages, and related remedies involving matters that existed as of May 18. The protection extended beyond Trump to family members, joint filers, trusts, parent and sister companies, affiliates, and subsidiaries. It expressly covered returns filed before the agreement took effect.
That is far removed from compensation for leaked tax information. Privacy law can provide damages for an unlawful disclosure. It does not entitle the victim to stop the IRS from deciding whether previously filed returns were accurate.
The exact private benefit is uncertain. The New York Times estimated that ending a long running audit could save Trump roughly $100 million if the audit remained open and the IRS ultimately ruled against him. That is an estimate, not a confirmed tax debt. A president has no business deciding whether enforcement against his own taxes disappears.
Williams barred the parties from citing the deal in any judicial, administrative, regulatory, or other official proceeding as evidence of a settlement in the case. Her order did not expressly erase every provision. AP reported that Trump is appealing while the tax provision remains a point of dispute. Trump is defending a tax protection issued by his own appointee while its enforceability remains contested.
The claimed precedent does not fit
Littlejohn’s crime caused a real injury. The Justice Department has broad authority to settle cases. Large settlements sometimes create claims processes, and the Trump plaintiffs were promised no direct payout. DOJ cited Keepseagle v. Vilsack, a settlement for Native American farmers who alleged discrimination in federal lending.
Keepseagle shows how far Trump’s proposal departed from a legitimate claims process. PolitiFact found that the earlier case involved a defined group seeking compensation for the same harm raised in the lawsuit. Claimants had to meet concrete standards concerning their identity, farming activity, credit applications, and contemporaneous complaints. A federal judge supervised the agreement. It considered about 4,300 claims and approved more than 3,600.
Trump’s fund concerned future claimants with grievances unrelated to the tax leak. Its eligibility rules used political slogans. Its decision makers answered to officials Trump could fire, and no judge would review their awards. The name “claims fund” is their only meaningful similarity.
This scheme should not depend on Cornyn and Tillis winning a negotiation over Blanche’s nomination. The fund remains blocked, but the underlying abuse has already happened. A president used the Justice Department to negotiate against his own agencies, sought public money for political allies, and secured a tax shield for his family.
Trump was entitled to the remedy the law provides for the violation of his privacy. His allies can prove valid claims in court. His family should face the same tax enforcement as every other family. The presidency is not a private claims office, and the Justice Department does not belong to the man occupying the White House.