(AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s Justice Department announced on Monday the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate political allies prosecuted under the Biden administration. In exchange for the setting up of the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” the Justice Department said Trump was dropping a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that was seeking $10 billion in damages for a leak of his tax returns.
Trump, his two eldest sons Eric and Donald Jr., and the Trump Organization had filed a lawsuit against the tax-collecting agency in a federal district court in Florida over the tax returns leak. A former IRS contractor pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking the tax returns of Trump and other wealthy Americans to the media and received a five-year prison sentence.
The Justice Department, which is currently headed by Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, said the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was being created as part of a settlement in the IRS case. “The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Blanche said in a statement.
“As part of this settlement, we are setting up a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress,” the acting attorney general said. The Justice Department said Blanche will appoint the five members of the fund and the Trumps “will receive a formal apology but no monetary payment or damages of any kind.”
After leaving the White House in 2021, Trump was accused by special counsel Jack Smith of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden and mishandling classified documents. Both cases were dropped after the Republican won the 2024 presidential election. The compensation fund could be tapped by others who believe they were unfairly pursued by the Biden administration. This could include, for example, the hundreds of Trump supporters who were prosecuted for their involvement in the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol which sought to prevent congressional certification of Biden’s election victory. Trump issued a mass pardon to the January 6 defendants on his first day in office last year.
– ‘Outright corruption’ – The compensation plan for Trump’s political allies prompted fierce criticism from Democratic lawmakers even ahead of its formal unveiling on Monday. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called it “outright corruption.” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, in a post on X, said: “Trump is ‘dropping’ his bogus lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for a slush fund, courtesy of your tax dollars, that he can use to pay off his political allies.”
Since taking office for a second time, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies, pushing for criminal cases against political opponents, purging government officials he deems disloyal, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him, and pulling federal funding from universities.
© 2024 AFP
