Now That IRS Is FOREVER BARRED From Auditing Trump, Guess He'll Release His Tax Returns, Huh?
He must be so relieved. He's wanted to release them for YEARS.
Tuesday, right around the time our story on Donald Trump’s Big Slush Fund for January 6 insurrectors and other villains went online, Trump’s Justice Department dropped another stinky shit-covered shoe, in the form of a one-page addendum to the corrupt deal that created the slush fund. In that second document, (acting) Attorney General Todd Blanche declared Trump, his family, his companies, and all 400-plus of his shell companies forever free from any investigation or tax audits, as long as the rivers run and the grass grows. Or whatever that thing on his head is.
It’s pretty fucking audacious, basically giving Trump et al. immunity from prosecution for all tax frauds or financial crimes he or his et als may have committed prior to May 19, 2026.
This fucking thing should be Exhibit B at Trump’s impeachment trial (Exhibit A will be the document creating the slush fund).
The document declares that the IRS is “hereby FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from” ever auditing or prosecuting or investigating or looking at or even breathing too loudly around Trump’s taxes — or his family’s or businesses’ taxes — SO THERE. We especially like the nullification of all claims that “have been or could have been” made against Trump or his et als.
In a very decorous bit of understatement, The New York Times said that the new provision “invited immediate criticism as tax experts raised the possibility that it was illegal.” If it had been us, we’d have added “as FUCK” to that.
Prefer a non-Substack subscription? The button below will take any amount of your choosing at Paypal — let us know if you want the newsletter subscription too! they’re separate! — or we have a Patreon too.
As we’ve noted, the corrupt slush fund deal is not a legal “settlement” because it’s all happening outside the purview of the federal court where Trump filed his $10 billion shakedown lawsuit in the first place, then dropped it to avoid judicial oversight. Nonetheless, in a statement yesterday, the Justice Department stuck to the fiction that the get-out-of -audits-free card is simply part of a routine legal “settlement.” Just yell “liars!” whenever they say that.
“As is customary in settlements, both sides have executed waivers of a variety of claims that were or could have been brought,” the DOJ statement lied lyingly. “There would be little point in settling several significant claims if either party could simply turn around and seek to initiative more adverse claims that could have been pursued previously.”
Remember, the “parties” in this case are Donald Trump the private citizen, represented by his private attorneys, and the government that Donald Trump controls, whose own personal defense attorney Todd Blanche hammered out a compromise with his boss, Donald Trump, that benefits his client, Donald Trump the private citizen.
The statement did note that the agreement is “only with respect to existing audits, not future,” so Donald Trump better watch his step when it comes to cheating on his taxes starting yesterday.
We will give the often-timid New York Times credit for actually making clear just what a big deal this latest fuckery is:
It revealed the determination of Mr. Trump and his appointees to ram through maximalist measures with minimum outside scrutiny at a moment when they still have uncontested control of government.
The provision was the latest in a series of maneuvers this week that blurred the all-but-vanished boundary between official department business and the private interests of a president intent on using his power to extract financial gain from the federal government for himself and his allies.
The Times noted that Blanche’s little gift could pay off quite handsomely for Trump, considering that in 2024 the paper reported that “a loss in an I.R.S. audit could cost Mr. Trump more than $100 million.” No worries now!
On the topic of more recent financial fuckery, Politico interviewed former IRS commissioner John Koskinen, who served from 2013 to November 2017 and actually managed to finish his appointed term without getting shitcanned by Trump. He called the deal a “terrible precedent” that could let Trump make out like a bandit:
“It makes you wonder what the President has to hide in those tax returns. He’s apparently been actively trading in the stock market and, since he knows a lot more about situations than the average investor, he’s probably generated significant taxable earnings,” he said in an emailed statement. “Not auditing his returns is the same as giving him an easy way to, in effect, receive money from the government.”
So far, damned if we can tell what can or will be done to slow down this corruption machine. Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin (Maryland) and Richard Neal (Massachusetts), respectively the ranking members of the Judiciary and Ways and Means Committees, have demanded in a very sternly worded letter that Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano testify before Congress to explain just what the hell they think they’re doing. They decried the $1.8 billion insurrection slush fund as “one of the most brazen acts of public corruption and self-dealing in American history,” and called on the government to retain all documents, correspondence and stuff related to the deal, so that’s a start.
Also, two of the police officers who were injured by the mob on January 6, former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges (the guy crushed in the door by the nonviolent tourists), have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the slush fund, so there’s that. The suit argues that the fund violates the 14th Amendment’s provision that bans using federal money to “pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States,” but that’s probably just old-timey Civil War talk that Trump can wipe away with an executive order.
But while we wait for the Supreme Court to decide Dunn and Hodges don’t have standing to sue and are also just jealous of real patriots like the soon-to-be rich J6 child molester, we sure would like to see some articles of impeachment being written, just as practice for later.
[NBC News / NYT / Politico / Common Dreams / Politico]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you’d like to make a one-time (or recurring) donation, you can click this here button, which will grant you immunity from any tax crimes (if you are already president of the United States).
The only things missing from this document are an order that the IRS shall always call him "Sir" with tears in their eyes and a "Thank you for your attention to this matter" at the end.
Having gotten the clause "IRS is hereby FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from ...", DFT is announcing loudly and clearly that those old tax returns are FULL of fraud.