Trump’s New $1.7 BILLION Slush Fund Boondoggle

A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.

Corruption: IRS edition

A bribery deal is in the works between President Trump and his subordinates at the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service that would settle his outstanding personal claims against the U.S. government by creating a $1.7 billion uncontrolled discretionary slush fund to pay his allies who were “victims” of the deep state, including defendants pardoned on January 6, according to an ABC News report.

The “expected” settlement agreement – ​​the final terms of which have not yet been set – would resolve (i) Trump’s $10 billion claim relating to the criminal leak of Trump’s tax returns by an IRS contractor who was convicted and sentenced to prison; (ii) its $230 million claim arising from the 2016 Russian collusion investigation and the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search.

News of a potential settlement comes after The New York Times suggested this week that the parties were rushing to settle the IRS claim before a May 20 deadline in a Florida federal court to file briefs demonstrating that the case was legitimately adverse. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami raised concerns that Trump and the IRS were essentially on the same side, which would mean there would be no real legal dispute to decide (more on that below).

A spokesperson for President Trump’s legal team did not deny ABC News’ report on the terms of the settlement, which reportedly includes a public apology from the IRS.

The reported terms of the settlement agreement are staggering in their corrupt resolution of the underlying claims, but the pending agreement, as described by ABC News, opens a whole new avenue of corruption by placing $1.7 billion in Trump’s hands to distribute to his allies without any oversight, accountability or recourse.

The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have full authority to distribute approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer money to settle claims filed by anyone claiming to have been harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the justice system, including the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as well as potentially entities associated with President Trump himself. …

This arrangement would represent an unprecedented use of taxpayer dollars with little oversight. Under the terms of the potential settlement agreement, President Trump would have the authority to remove members of the commission managing the fund without cause, and the commission would not be required to disclose its procedures or decision-making process for awarding more than $1 billion, the sources said.

Trump is reportedly barred from personally receiving compensation from the slush fund for outstanding claims being resolved, but ABC News’ sources said “entities associated with Trump are not explicitly prohibited from filing additional claims.”

All the blazing red flags associated with this deal “have led some administration officials to raise ethical concerns about the arrangement,” ABC News reports. Do you think?

Public defenders speak out

Judge Williams appointed a group of prominent attorneys not involved in the case as friends of the court to brief her on the adversity issue. They filed their memorandum last night: “This case is unprecedented: a sitting president seeks damages from an executive agency he controls for alleged harm to his personal interests. » Only 16 pages, worth reading.

The amici ultimately do not take a position on the existence of adversity, but they compile convincing arguments in favor of the existence of such a situation. notconcluding that “President Trump enjoys great real and practical authority to control defendants.”

In advising the judge on the particular circumstances of this case, they begin with the extraordinary power Trump has wielded over the executive branch compared to previous presidents. They cite, among other things:

• Trump fired IRS Commissioner Billy Long “without providing a reason.”
• Trump “has significantly expanded the president’s oversight and control over the attorney general and the Justice Department, including in ways that blur the line between loyalty to the president’s policy priorities and loyalty to the president himself.”
• Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi “expected Justice Department lawyers to demonstrate personal loyalty to President Trump.”
• The Trump administration “has taken the position that it has irrevocable authority to fire high-level officials deemed insufficiently aligned with the executive branch… Some dismissals of DOJ attorneys have already occurred on this basis.”

Then they get to the heart of the matter, whether Trump actually controls the defense of his own trial. Their assessment is striking: “There is also reason to believe that the President does, in fact, exercise control over the defendants in this litigation. President Trump’s own statements suggest that he believes he has control over the defendants and the Justice Department lawyers assigned to defend this case.”

They contrast the handling of Trump’s complaint with the vigorous defense the DOJ has mounted in related litigation, circumstances that “raise the specter that defendants and their attorneys could… act at the direction of the President.”

They suggest to the judge that there are numerous factual investigations she could potentially conduct into the DOJ’s handling of the Trump case and related cases to help her narrow down the issue of adversity.

It is unclear whether settling the case before Judge Williams rules would leave the judge with authority to review the settlement, and it is a tricky legal question whether outside parties would have the legal standing to challenge the settlement. This is why the parties appear to be rushing to settle the claims before the May 20 deadline.

“There is a certain irony here,” notes former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. “The purpose of the lawsuit was to treat the Federal Court as a place to whitewash a collusive deal and gain judicial imprimatur. Now that a judge is actually doing his job, testing whether the entire enterprise is constitutionally hollow, they want to step aside.”

Oversight of Trump’s Justice Department

• CNN: Todd Blanche learned last year, while still an assistant attorney general, that he would have to recuse himself from DOJ cases involving President Trump in his personal capacity, an ethical requirement the department says Blanche complied with.
• Trump’s DOJ is considering dropping fraud charges against an Indian billionaire after his lawyer — a former personal attorney for President Trump — gave a Power Point presentation to Main Justice last month that included an “unusual offer,” the New York Times reports: “If prosecutors dropped the charges, Mr. Adani would be willing to invest $10 billion in the U.S. economy and create 15,000 jobs, echoing a pledge he made following Mr. Trump.
• The DOJ told a federal judge in Washington that citizenship lists compiled under a Trump executive order and intended to be shared with state election officials would likely be incomplete and unreliable in determining voter eligibility, the New York Times reports.

The abortion pill will remain available

TPM’s Kate Riga: Supreme Court keeps mifepristone available for now as Alito and Thomas Seethe disagree

The great whitewash: SC edition

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) reversed course and called a special session of the legislature, but he did not directly call for a new congressional district map that eliminates the only majority-black district.

The tension here, as far as I can tell, is more about the math than the principle. By cramming the state’s black voters into Democratic Rep. James Clyburn’s district, the other congressional seats are safely Republican. Eliminating the Clyburn district risks further jeopardizing some of these seats.

It’s not hard to imagine that the governor and Republican Senate majority leader, who opposes redistricting ahead of the midterm elections, has a better understanding of his state’s math than the Trump White House.

13 victims of US boat strikes identified

A joint effort by 20 journalists, led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism, has identified 13 of the more than 190 people killed in President Trump’s lawless campaign of high-seas attacks on suspected drug trafficking boats.

Another

The House Ethics Committee has confirmed that it is investigating sexual harassment and hostile workplace allegations against Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC).

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