Trump’s Corruption Reaches New Heights With IRS Settlement
As part of a lawsuit settlement with his own IRS, the president will begin paying violent extremists using your tax dollars — while gaining immunity from future tax audits
Photo by Tyler Merbler on Flickr (modified)
In one of the most breathtaking examples of presidential corruption to date, Donald Trump and the Justice Department are moving forward with plans to create a $1.776 billion fund that will be used to hand out payments to MAGA sycophants, including the violent criminals who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
As part of an agreement reached with the IRS to settle a $10 billion civil lawsuit involving the leak of his tax returns during his first term, Trump will reportedly establish a federal “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to reward his henchmen and allies with taxpayer-funded kickbacks.
Namely, anyone who was charged or convicted for attacking the Capitol will be able to claim financial compensation under the false pretense that they were persecuted, rather than prosecuted, by the Biden Justice Department.
You read that correctly — to settle a lawsuit where he appears as both the plaintiff and defendant — the president will get to steer millions of dollars to his friends and personally reward the 1,500 violent criminals who attempted to overthrow the government on his behalf 5 years ago.
The precedent this sets is unmistakable. On January 6, Donald Trump’s angry mob remorselessly assaulted police officers, threatened to hang the vice president, and climbed through broken windows in search of lawmakers.
Those who were charged and arrested for their actions that day weren’t the victims of a ‘weaponized’ system; rather, they were domestic terrorists who were tried and sentenced for their crimes against our democracy. Nevertheless, Trump made pardoning them a day-one priority of his second term, and he now wants to see them added to the federal payroll.
If the administration is allowed to move forward with this awful scheme, the implications for the next election couldn’t be any more dire. Last time, Trump’s insurrectionists didn’t know what they were stepping into when they breached the halls of Congress; in the future, however, they will have pardons and financial compensation waiting for them on the other side.
This isn’t just an arbitrary slush fund — we’re witnessing the formation of a private militia with de facto immunity from federal law, one that Trump will invariably use to challenge elections and incite violence again in the future.
Therefore, Democrats on Capitol Hill have vowed to challenge this obvious corruption using every means at their disposal.
“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin warned on Monday.
“We urge the Court to dismiss this ludicrous case for lack of jurisdiction and to block any settlement that would turn the Treasury into a vehicle for corrupt self-dealing in violation of the Constitution and Congress’s exclusive power of the purse.”
During a time when the cost of living is at a premium, the president’s decision to use our money to award himself an insurrectionist slush fund — alongside other pointless vanity projects like his gilded ballroom — is especially insulting. Donald Trump has always exploited other people to gain an advantage, and the American people under his administration have certainly been no exception.
In order for there to be a free and fair election in 2028, and perhaps more importantly, a peaceful transfer of power, Congress needs to do everything in its power to stop this scheme before the president ends up with his own private taxpayer-funded militia.
Update: Trump's IRS Settlement Just Got Worse
According to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, the government will also be prohibited from examining any past tax returns of Trump, his family, and any “related companies” in perpetuity — applying to every case before the settlement was reached.
The corruption here is staggering; while Americans in every state are being forced to decide between paying for gas, groceries, or health care, Donald Trump and his family have profited more from the presidency than any other administration. Although the president’s exact wealth is difficult to measure, House Democrats estimate that Trump has personally profited somewhere between $2.25 billion and $10 billion from foreign interests, corrupt oligarchs, digital assets, and market manipulation schemes during his time inside the Oval Office.
The Trump family has decided to line its pockets at our expense, and now the IRS, which they control, has ensured that they will never have to pay a single cent in taxes for their multi-billion-dollar exploitation of the American people.
Moreover, the irony surrounding this lawsuit is difficult to ignore. Namely, every modern president and presidential candidate has released their tax returns without hesitation — all except Donald Trump.
Dating back to his first term, the president has repeatedly promised complete transparency regarding his wealth and income, including the full release of his tax returns. Nevertheless, when an independent IRS contractor leaked snippets of this information between 2019 and 2020, Trump responded by suing the agency for $10 billion dollars — eventually resulting in this week’s settlement.
If he had actually been truthful about his finances, which was the norm for past presidents, there would never have been a conflict. As it happens, the “most transparent” administration in history is anything but.
We’re witnessing an unprecedented level of corruption inside the federal government, and at this rate, the administration isn’t even trying to hide it. This settlement — litigated by a single man — is the ultimate proof that the president ran for office to serve himself, not the forgotten communities he promised to save.
Thankfully, Trump and his nepotism dynasty aren’t entirely out of the woods yet, as two police officers injured on Jan. 6, 2021, are bringing a new lawsuit against the Justice Department to fight certain terms of the settlement.
Namely, former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges argue that the Trump administration’s creation of a $1.776 billion insurrectionist fund will directly finance far-right extremism and bolster white supremacist paramilitary groups — violating the 14th Amendment’s restrictions on paying any debt or obligation to “insurrection or rebellion against the United States.”
Trump’s day-one decision to pardon these violent and lawless individuals was already reckless enough, but paying them using our tax dollars is both criminal and a direct attack on our democracy. While the president giving himself IRS audit immunity is grossly corrupt, the federal payouts this settlement establishes set an even more dangerous precedent for future elections and the peaceful transfer of power.
Dozens of pardoned Jan. 6 rioters have already gone on to commit new crimes, and if the president calls on them to besiege Washington once again, we can expect them to answer loudly and forcefully.
“At least 33 pardoned insurrectionists to date have drawn new criminal charges, ranging from illegal gun possession and assault to kidnapping and rape,” Dunn’s lawsuit states. “These [payments] are rewarding them and creating an incentive now.”
Trump’s self-granted IRS immunity and $1.776 billion insurrectionist fund are a reminder of the high stakes at play in upcoming elections, not just as we head into November, but in 2028 as well. The president is giving himself the power of a king, and if left unchecked, will have a far greater chance of succeeding with a coup compared to his last attempt.
To repair our democracy, prosecute this criminal regime, and get the government working on behalf of the American people once more, a Democratic congressional majority is non-negotiable — and it’s going to take all of us to make it happen.
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