Donald Trump's DOJ Gives Donald Trump $1.8 Billion To Give Donald Trump's January 6 Terrorists, Criminals, Cop-Beaters, Villain Pals
Donny Got His Fund.
Donald Trump’s Justice Department announced Monday it would set up a nearly $1.8 billion slush fund for Donald Trump to hand out money to January 6 insurrectionists and other political allies who Donald Trump decides were victims of government “weaponization” because they were loyal to Donald Trump. The move came after Trump dropped his $10 billion shakedown lawsuit against the IRS over a leak of his tax returns that showed he didn’t pay any taxes.
The DOJ claimed the fund was being created “in exchange” for Trump’s ending the lawsuit and other claims of the government being mean to him, like the completely legal 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago and the investigation into the help Russia gave him in the 2016 election.
But it’s not really a “settlement” in any legal sense, which is a pretty damned important distinction. US District Judge Kathleen Williams, who presided over the IRS lawsuit, pointed out, “Because the Notice [to drop the lawsuit] does not reference any settlement or include a stipulation of settlement, there is no settlement of record.”
In preemptively dropping the $10 billion lawsuit, Trump’s attorneys — no, not the (acting) attorney general — effectively made sure Judge Williams couldn’t interfere with his scheme, since real settlements are subject to being overseen by the judges in federal cases. As the New York Times points out:
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.
DO NOT call this a “settlement.” It’s more of a “deal,” or more accurately, a self-deal, since the entire lawsuit was about Trump as a “private citizen” suing the government Trump the president leads, and the arrangement was set up by the Justice Department that Trump the autocrat controls quite directly. After all, (acting) Attorney General Todd Blanche got his job because he was previously Trump’s personal lawyer, back when Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of criminal fraud.
Also, we must defer to our friends at The Fucking News for coming up with the best goddamn headline possible for this story, “Trump to Pay His Workers for Once.”
To celebrate the end of democracy as we know it after 250 years, the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” will be set up with $1,776,000,000 in taxpayer funding. Isn’t that cute?
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The corrupt deal was rushed into place because Judge Williams made clear she was considering dismissing the lawsuit, what with the thing where Trump was effectively both the plaintiff and the the defendant, since both sets of attorneys were “entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.” Williams had ordered Trump’s personal lawyers and Trump’s DOJ lawyers to submit briefs by Wednesday to explain whether they were actually adversaries in the case, or just partners in a sweetheart deal scheme to hand Trump a great big pile of money, so dropping the case altogether was a pretty tricksy way to short-circuit having to comply with that order.
Trump’s personal attorneys said in their filing to drop the case that “no judicial analysis is appropriate.” In her order, Williams acknowledged that plaintiffs have the right to walk away from a lawsuit they’ve filed, bringing an end to the litigation, but she nonetheless criticized the Justice Department for failing to put a potential deal on the record or even explain whether it was really fighting the other set of Trump attorneys:
Defendants – federal agencies represented by the Department of Justice, which has an independent obligation to uphold the ‘public’s strong interest in knowing about the conduct of its Government and expenditure of its resources’ and the ‘fair administration of justice’ – neither submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed.
But don’t you worry none, it’s not like Donald Trump will be personally using the fund to reward his private militia goons who attacked the US Capitol. Instead, those decisions will be made by a five-member commission chosen by the US attorney general, if the Senate ever confirms one. One member of the commission will be picked “in consultation with” congressional leaders, although obviously Democratic leaders’ opinions will be ignored. And just to make clear that commission members don’t get any ideas about acting independently, they can all be removed by Trump as he sees fit.
Even before any members of the commission have been named, Trump is already finding it a useful way to avoid any hint of responsibility. When asked by a reporter yesterday whether the fund would offer payouts to January 6 thugs convicted and pardoned for assaulting police officers, or whether his own family could feed at the weaponization trough, Trump said such decisions would be out of his hands: “It’ll all be dependent on a committee being set up of very talented people, very highly respected people. […] And again, I didn't do this deal. It was told to me yesterday. They said they're doing something. I do believe there has to be compensation for people that were destroyed. You have families absolutely destroyed.”
The $1.8 billion for the slush fund will come out of the DOJ’s “judgment fund,” an uncapped appropriation that’s normally used to pay out claims in lawsuits against the government, or in settlements. But decisions about who gets a payout will come from the commission, which is great news for the January 6 thugs, most of whom pleaded guilty to criming.
In another very sweet part of the arrangement, the DOJ’s memo setting up the new Brownshirt Slush Fund attempts to shield the government from any responsibility for whatever the fuck recipients do with their payouts, with language specifying that once the money goes from the settlement fund into the “weaponization fund,” the US government “has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of the funds.”
We are Not A Lawyer, but doesn’t that sound like an invitation to fraud? Or at least some ass-covering in case some J6-er decides to use his payout to do some crimes or promise money to a victim of child sexual abuse to keep quiet?
Sen. Chris Van Hollen asked Blanche about that possibility in a hearing just this morning, although Blanche insisted Van Hollen was lying, because the fund was only created yesterday and the child molester couldn’t have known specifically about it. This is, in an extremely narrow and nitpicking way, “true”: The crimer simply assumed he’d be getting a big payout eventually, which is totally different. Obviously, no need to put any conditions on the funds.
Trump really does pick the very best people, although it seems the Big Beautiful Slush Fund may have led one recent appointee to resign, possibly in disgust. Just a few hours after the scheme was announced, Treasury Department General Counsel Brian Morrissey resigned after just seven months as the department’s top lawyer. Then again, Morrissey hasn’t publicly commented on why he left, so maybe it was all a complete coincidence. Who can say with Trumpers?
[NBC News / The Fucking News / CNN / WSJ (gift link) / NYT / CBS News / TNR]
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Claw that shit back ASAP. Make it clear that it will be clawed back straight from their checking accounts now so they know.
If there's no actual legal determination or action, because he chose to end the suit, how can there be a payout? It's just the government, with no legal justification, handing him a pile of money... what the actual fuck!??! This can't be anywhere near legal, and this asshole cannot get away with this. I CANNOT STAND THIS SHIT.