Critics rage as Trump builds $1.7B taxpayer shush fund for cronies

President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to force the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to pay him $1.7 billion for a slush fund for his cronies.

Trump is angling to obtain this money as a settlement with the Justice Department he controls in a $10 billion lawsuit he filed by claiming that the agency is responsible for his tax returns being leaked. Now Trump says he will redirect $1.7 billion to a compensation fund for supporters like the nearly 1,600 individuals charged with the Jan. 6 insurrection and agencies connected to Trump himself.

He has promised not to self-deal from funds given to the agencies he controls, and instead says all of the money will go to supporters he claims were persecuted by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.

Trump sued the federal government for $10 billion when his tax returns were leaked in 2019, which revealed that he had paid very little in federal income taxes and suffered a string of undisclosed financial failures. He has also sued the government for $230 million for the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate over allegedly stealing classified documents and the investigation into his ties to the Russian government.

Experts pointed out that it is impossible for a president to not have a conflict of interest when suing the government he controls, and that the Justice Department, which is assigned the role of defending agencies like the IRS, cannot be expected to do so when the president will presumably fire or otherwise punish employees there who do not follow his wishes.

“While the settlement is expected to be agreed upon in the coming days, sources caution that the final terms will not be set until they are officially announced,” CNN reported Thursday night. It later noted that “the settlement terms are expected to prohibit Trump from directly receiving payments related to those three legal claims; however, entities associated with Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claims, sources said.”

As the libertarian commentator James Bovard recently pointed out in USA Today, if Trump’s original lawsuit had prevailed and he received $10 billion, that would require every American taxpayer to pay him roughly $100 directly. Mathematically this would instead mean every American would have to pay people like the Jan. 6th insurrections an average of $17.

“Roughly 100 million Americans pay federal income taxes annually (not counting people who receive more in earned income tax credits than they pay in income taxes),” Bovard wrote. “A $10 billion settlement divided by 100 million taxpayers works out to about $100 per taxpayer, or $200 per couple.”

He added, “If congressional Democrats are savvy, they would mandate that the payout to Trump be financed by IRS penalty letters sent directly to 100 million taxpayers. To add salt to the wound, citizens could be compelled to send their payments directly to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.”

There are also doubts as to whether Trump will not self-deal if he gets a settlement. As conservative commentator Andrew Egger pointed out, “Trump had been using his personal charity ... to pay his business debts, make political contributions, and buy things for himself.”

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called the fund a "$1.7B fraud on the American taxpayer to line the pockets of his MAGA political allies ... and turn the federal government into a personal cash machine for his unpopular extremist movement."

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