The One-Sentence Version
The Justice Department announced on May 18 a settlement of President Trump’s $10 billion personal lawsuit against the IRS, creating a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded fund to compensate his allies and, in a separate one-page document signed the next day, declaring the IRS permanently barred from auditing his family’s pre-settlement tax returns. This article walks through what the agreement actually says, who gets the money, and why the Treasury Department’s top lawyer resigned the same week.
What You Need to Know First
How the IRS works and why it’s supposed to be independent
The Internal Revenue Service is a bureau of the Treasury Department. Its job is to administer the federal tax code. Like any federal agency, it answers to the president in the chain of command, but its day-to-day enforcement work is supposed to be insulated from political direction.
That insulation is not just convention. After President Nixon used the IRS to audit political enemies in the early 1970s, Congress wrote a federal statute, 26 U.S.C. § 7217, that makes it a crime for the president, the vice president, or any senior White House official to request an audit or investigation of a specific taxpayer. The president cannot legally tell the IRS to audit someone, and the president cannot legally tell the IRS not to audit someone.
This article describes an arrangement that crosses both of those lines.
What a real lawsuit requires
A federal court can only hear a case if there are two opposing parties with a real dispute. The constitutional requirement, drawn from Article III, is called “case or controversy.” If both sides of a case are actually controlled by the same person, the case is not real and the court has no jurisdiction.[1]
The Judgment Fund
The Judgment Fund is a permanent appropriation managed by the Treasury Department that pays out settlements and judgments against the United States. It exists so that the government can resolve cases without having to ask Congress for a specific appropriation each time. The fund is the source of the money in this story.[2]
What a “blind trust” was supposed to mean
A real blind trust, under federal ethics law, requires that the official does not control the trust, does not know what it holds, and cannot communicate with the trustees about it.[3] Trump’s announced first-term arrangement, the basis for his second-term claim that his assets are protected from his control, was found by the federal Office of Government Ethics in January 2017 to be “not even close” to a blind trust because the trustees were his sons and the assets were not divested.[4] The settlement at the center of this article assumes the blind-trust framing is real. It is not.
A word about this article
This is not a fair-fight story. The arrangement described here has been called a “slush fund” by 93 House Democrats, “naked corruption” by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history” by CREW’s president Donald Sherman, “another heinously corrupt act” by Sen. Ron Wyden, “the most brazen theft and abuse of taxpayer dollars” by Sen. Wyden again on Capitol Hill, and “looting the Treasury” by Sen. Patty Murray on the Senate floor.[5] This article does not use those terms in its own voice. The documents and quotes carry the load.
The Lawsuit
The leak
In 2021, an Internal Revenue Service contractor named Charles Littlejohn, who worked for the technology firm Booz Allen Hamilton, leaked confidential tax records belonging to Donald Trump to The New York Times and ProPublica. He also leaked tax records belonging to other wealthy Americans, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. The total number of compromised tax records, according to the Justice Department, was 405,000.[6]
The Times’s 2020 reporting based on Littlejohn’s leak found that Trump had paid $750 in federal income tax in the year he first entered the White House, and no income tax at all in some years, due to large reported business losses.[6]
Littlejohn pleaded guilty. In January 2024, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes sentenced him to five years in federal prison, the statutory maximum.[6]
The leak was a real crime. The harm to Trump from having his confidential tax filings published is real, in the same way the harm to the 404,999 other Americans whose tax records were leaked is real. This article does not contest any of that.
The lawsuit
On January 29, 2026, Donald Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization filed a civil suit against the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The complaint demanded $10 billion in damages.[7]
Trump was sworn in as president for the second time nine days earlier, on January 20, 2026. By the date of filing, he was, as the head of the executive branch, the senior official to whom both the IRS and the Treasury Department report.
The plaintiff and the defendants were on the same side of the line.
”Work out a settlement with myself”
On February 5, 2026, in an interview with NBC News’s Tom Llamas, Trump described the litigation:[8]
“Essentially, the lawsuit’s been won. I guess I won a lot of money.”
No court had ruled on the case. The complaint was eight days old.
Trump continued:
“I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself.”
He suggested any payout might be given to charity, mentioning the American Cancer Society. He did not provide specifics. The Trump Foundation, his prior charitable vehicle, was dissolved by order of the New York Supreme Court in 2018 after a finding of self-dealing, and Trump was personally ordered in November 2019 to pay $2 million in damages.[4]
Judge Williams flags the structural problem
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams, an Obama appointee. On April 24, 2026, Williams issued an order flagging the constitutional problem with the case. From her order:[9]
“Although President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.”
She quoted the Supreme Court’s “case or controversy” requirement: “If there is no adverseness, there is no case or controversy.” She ordered both parties to file briefs by May 20 addressing whether the lawsuit could proceed.
Two days before that deadline, on May 18, the lawsuit was settled.
The Settlement: Three Parts
The agreement announced on Monday, May 18, 2026, has three documented components. They were not all disclosed at the same time.
Part 1: The $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund”
The first and largest component is a $1.776 billion fund the Justice Department named the “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” The money comes from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, the permanent appropriation that ordinarily pays out settlements against the United States.[10]
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney before being elevated to lead the Justice Department in April 2026, announced the fund. His statement:[10]
“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.”
The fund opens, in Blanche’s framing, “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.”
A five-member commission will administer the fund. All five commissioners are appointed by Blanche. They serve at the president’s pleasure and can be removed without cause. They alone determine who receives money and how much. According to the Justice Department, there are no “partisan requirements” for applicants, the recipient list will be kept “confidential,” and the commission’s quarterly reports go only to the Acting Attorney General.[11]
Trump told reporters at the White House the day of the announcement that he had not been involved in the deal:[10]
“It’ll all be dependent on a committee. I didn’t do this deal. It was told to me yesterday.”
He added that the fund was dedicated to “reimbursing people who were horribly treated.”
Part 2: The tax-amnesty addendum
On Tuesday morning, May 19, the Justice Department quietly posted a separately signed addendum to the settlement on its website. The Guardian’s Sam Levine reported the document the same day; the Daily Beast and Associated Press confirmed it.[12]
The addendum is a single page. It is signed only by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Neither the IRS Commissioner nor the Associate Attorney General, the officials whose signatures would ordinarily accompany an IRS-related settlement, are signatories.
The text declares the IRS “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from examining or prosecuting any tax return filed by Donald Trump, his family, the Trump Organization, or “related companies” before the agreement’s effective date.[12]
Sen. Ron Wyden, ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, called the addendum a violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7217, the statute Congress passed after Watergate to prevent the executive branch from directing IRS audits.[12] Rep. Richard Neal, ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, called the addendum “corruption in the plainest sight.”[12]
According to Sam Levine’s reporting in the Guardian, citing a same-day New York Times report, IRS officials had recommended fighting Trump’s lawsuit. The agency settled anyway.[12]
Part 3: The $230 million in parallel administrative claims
Trump’s settlement of the IRS lawsuit also resolved two separate administrative claims he had previously filed against the federal government. The combined value of those claims is approximately $230 million.[13]
The first claim sought damages from the Justice Department over the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The second sought damages from the Justice Department over the FBI’s August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents Trump had retained after leaving office.
The May 18 settlement extinguishes both claims. The $230 million is part of what Trump trades away in the settlement. Whether that figure was net-credited against the $1.776 billion or paid separately is not addressed in the publicly released text.
Where the Money Will Go
This is the question with the fewest clear answers in the published text of the settlement. The structural facts are documented.
The five-member commission
Five people will decide who receives the $1.776 billion. All five are appointed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. They can be removed by him without cause. The commission has no statutory floor on the number of meetings it must hold, no statutory ceiling on the size of an individual payout, no requirement that decisions be made by majority vote, and no mechanism for outside appeal.[11]
The text of the agreement, posted to the Justice Department website the night of May 18, says the commission will produce “quarterly confidential reports” to the Attorney General. Despite the word “confidential,” Blanche told the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 19 that the claims “awarded, the basis and the amount” will “for sure be made public along the way.” Guardian and Independent reporting noted the inconsistency between the agreement’s text and Blanche’s public assurance.[11]
Who is eligible
Per Blanche, testifying on Capitol Hill the day after the announcement: “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were victims.”
This includes:
- People who say they were targeted by the Biden Justice Department.
- People who say they were targeted by any of the previous three administrations.
- Political donors to Donald Trump’s campaigns. Blanche, asked directly by senators whether donors are excluded from claiming, said they are not.[11]
- According to Blanche, people convicted of and pardoned for involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Sen. Chris Van Hollen pressed Blanche on whether a Jan 6 pardonee later convicted of five counts of child sex crimes against minors would be eligible. Blanche declined to say no. Van Hollen: “I find that obscene.”[11]
According to Blanche’s testimony, Trump personally and his sons are not eligible to receive money from the fund. The agreement does not explicitly exclude entities associated with Trump from filing claims. The Associated Press reported May 18: “entities associated with Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claims.”[10]
What this looks like in practice
The agreement creates a federal payout system, administered by a commission whose members work for the person who created it, distributing taxpayer money to people who allege wrongs done to them by the federal government’s prior leadership. The administering official chooses the commissioners. There is no judicial review of an individual award. There is no statutory criterion for what counts as a wrong. There is no maximum payment.
A senator asked Blanche about that structure on May 19. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, asked what legal basis the commission would use to make award decisions. Blanche told her the commissioners would receive information voluntarily, that the commission could either issue an apology or award financial compensation, and that the decisions would not be reviewed by him or by others in the administration. Five commissioners. No oversight.[11]
The Treasury Lawyer Who Resigned
Brian Morrissey is the General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department. He is the department’s senior lawyer. He was confirmed by the Senate in October 2025, roughly seven months before the settlement.[14]
Morrissey is, by any normal political reading, not the kind of official who resigns from a Republican administration. He served in Trump’s first administration. Before that, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He spent his career in private practice at Sidley Austin, the corporate law firm. He is a conservative legal-establishment figure.[14]
He resigned over the settlement.
Three sources told the New York Times he resigned because of the IRS deal. Two of those sources said they had reviewed his resignation letter. Morrissey himself declined to comment publicly. The Treasury Department’s statement was brief: “Mr. Morrissey has served the United States Treasury with both honor and integrity. We wish him all the best.”[14]
The Treasury General Counsel’s role is to advise the Secretary of the Treasury on the legal basis for the department’s actions, including settlements paid out of the Treasury’s Judgment Fund. Morrissey’s resignation, in the form it took, signals that the Treasury’s senior lawyer concluded the settlement could not be legally defended from inside the department.
He is the first publicly resigned Senate-confirmed Trump appointee of the second term.
The Senate Republican Break
The settlement produced the first significant Republican leadership rift in the Senate of the second Trump term.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), walking into the Capitol on May 19, was asked about the fund. From The Independent’s transcript:[15]
“Yeah, not a big fan. And I’m not sure exactly how they intend to use it, but my understanding is that was just announced. But yeah, I don’t see a purpose for that.”
Thune, the senior Republican in the Senate, did not introduce a bill to block the fund. He did not call for its rescission. He said he is “not a big fan.” That is, in current Senate Republican terms, a public break.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who voted to convict Trump after the second impeachment trial, was more direct:[15]
“We are a nation of laws, you can’t just make up things whole piece. I just came off the campaign trail, people are concerned about making their own ends meet, not about putting a slush fund together without a legal precedent.”
Cassidy lost his Republican primary runoff for re-election on May 16, three days before the settlement was announced, after Trump endorsed his opponent, Rep. Julia Letlow.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, did not condemn the fund but pressed Blanche on the legal basis for the commission’s decisions, the public reporting of award amounts, and the procedure for adjudicating claims. Her line of questioning made clear she did not believe the answers she received were adequate.[11]
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was “not bothered” by the fund. He cited prior federal payouts to former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page as precedent.[15] The Strzok and Page payouts were judgments in employment-discrimination cases brought by individual employees against their former employer, the FBI, decided by federal judges. The Anti-Weaponization Fund is administered by a commission appointed by the Acting Attorney General and pays claimants who allege “weaponization” without any required judicial finding.
The fund passed without a Senate vote because it is paid from the Judgment Fund, the Treasury Department’s permanent appropriation. The Judgment Fund does not require congressional authorization for individual disbursements.
By May 21, the break had widened into the broadest Republican revolt of the second term. At least 25 Republican senators told Blanche in a meeting that they opposed the fund. Rather than hold a vote on the unrelated immigration-enforcement bill, which Democrats planned to use to force Republicans on the record about the fund, Majority Leader Thune adjourned the Senate early and sent it into recess until June. In the House, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) announced legislation to block the fund; Trump publicly raged at him, warning that opposing him “doesn’t work out well” for Republicans. The fund is the rare Trump initiative that has drawn opposition from his own party’s leadership, its most vulnerable members, and its institutionalists at the same time.[21]
What It Costs
The money
$1.776 billion is the announced amount of the Anti-Weaponization Fund. The Treasury Department pays it. American taxpayers fund the Treasury.
To anchor that number: $1.776 billion is roughly equivalent to the annual federal budget for the Centers for Disease Control’s chronic disease prevention program, or about three-quarters of NASA’s annual planetary science budget, or about half of what the federal government spends on Pell Grants for low-income college students in a single year. The reference points are inexact but the scale is in that range.
If the $230 million in resolved administrative claims is treated as separate consideration, the total exposure of the federal government in this settlement is approximately $2 billion.
The IRS independence
The tax-amnesty addendum is a single-page document. Its legal effect, if upheld, is that the IRS may not audit the Trump family’s pre-settlement tax filings ever again. The 2019 Manhattan District Attorney’s criminal investigation of the Trump Organization found, according to prosecutors at the time, approximately $900 million in losses on Trump’s tax filings that they believed were fraudulently constructed. The Littlejohn-leaked returns showed years of little or no federal income tax paid. The IRS will not now audit any of that.
The president has, in writing, used the Justice Department to instruct the IRS not to enforce the tax code against him. Whether the instruction holds up in court is a separate question. The instruction exists.
The precedent
Other federal agencies are also subject to suit by the people who direct them. The Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the EPA, the SEC, every department of the federal government has at least one law it administers that, if applied to the president personally, could be the basis for a lawsuit. The mechanism the IRS settlement establishes — the president sues an agency he runs, the agency settles, the Judgment Fund pays — has no statutory ceiling and no judicial review.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Ron Wyden have each introduced legislation that would bar or 100%-tax any settlement paid to a sitting president from the Judgment Fund. Neither bill has advanced in the Republican-controlled Congress.[16]
Common Claims and What the Evidence Shows
Claim 1: “The IRS leak was a real crime. Trump deserves compensation.”
The strongest version of the claim. True. Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty to leaking Trump’s tax records and is serving five years in federal prison. The harm to Trump from the unauthorized publication of his confidential financial information is real, and the same statutes that protect every taxpayer’s records also protected his.
What the records show. The compensation question is real. The structural question is different. The 404,999 other Americans whose tax records Littlejohn leaked, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, are not getting $1.776 billion. Trump is not actually receiving the $1.776 billion either, per the announced terms. The settlement establishes a fund for people who allege “weaponization” by prior administrations, with a Trump-appointed commission deciding payouts and no judicial review. Personal compensation to Trump for the Littlejohn leak does not require any of that machinery. A standard federal damages judgment against the federal government, decided by Judge Williams on the merits in the existing case, would. The structural complaint is not about whether Trump was wronged. It is about the architecture of the resolution.
Claim 2: “The Obama administration paid out $1.5 billion to Native American farmers. This is the same thing.”
The strongest version of the claim. Acting Attorney General Blanche made exactly this comparison in his Senate testimony on May 19. In Keepseagle v. Vilsack, the Obama-era Justice Department settled a class-action discrimination case brought by Native American farmers against the Department of Agriculture. The settlement created a compensation fund. The Anti-Weaponization Fund is structurally similar.[15]
What the records show. Keepseagle was a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court by named plaintiffs against a federal agency, decided after years of litigation and supervised by a federal judge. The plaintiffs were a defined class with a specific legal claim (discrimination in farm-loan administration) tied to a federal statute. The settlement fund was administered with court oversight; awards were determined by an independent neutral; the criteria were defined in advance. The Anti-Weaponization Fund has no judge, no class, no defined statutory claim, no independent administrator, no advance criteria, and no requirement of any underlying legal wrong recognized in court. The precedent Blanche cited is, in its actual mechanics, the opposite of the fund he is administering. Reporters and legal scholars at the Independent, the Guardian, and Brookings have noted this in the days since.[11][12]
Claim 3: “Trump and his family don’t get the money. He’s not personally enriched.”
The strongest version of the claim. True under the announced terms. Trump cannot apply to the fund in his own name, and his sons are excluded. The fund’s recipients are people other than the president and his immediate family.
What the records show. Three points complicate the framing. First, the parallel tax-amnesty addendum is a direct benefit to Trump and his family that does not require any application. It removes legal exposure they would otherwise face. Second, the Associated Press reported on May 18 that “entities associated with Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claims.” Trump-affiliated companies, business partners, donors, and political allies are eligible. Third, the people the fund is designed to compensate include a population (Jan 6 defendants, political donors, allies who say they were investigated under prior administrations) whose loyalty has political value to the president even if no money flows directly to him. The phrase “personally enriched” can be true in a literal cash sense and still miss the political-benefit accounting.
Claim 4: “Judge Williams will block the settlement.”
The strongest version of the claim. Possibly. Judge Williams had ordered briefs on the case-or-controversy question by May 20, two days after the settlement was announced. The 93-member House Democratic amicus brief filed May 18 asks her to block the resolution. Williams is an Obama appointee who has already publicly flagged the structural problem with the case. The Democracy Forward, Public Citizen, and CREW amicus briefs filed earlier in the year add to the legal argument.[17]
What the records show. Trump’s filing argued the resolution would not be reviewable by a judge. Whether Williams agrees is the open question. Even if she does retain jurisdiction and rules against the settlement, the parties would presumably appeal. The Eleventh Circuit (which would hear the appeal from the Southern District of Florida) has a Republican-appointee majority. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 Republican-appointee majority. The legal challenge is real. The legal outcome is not yet known. The fund’s existence as posted to the DOJ website on May 18, the addendum’s posting on May 19, and the publicly announced commission are facts on the ground while the legal question proceeds.
Claim 5: “Congressional Democrats are partisan. Their objections are partisan.”
The strongest version of the claim. Many congressional Democrats objecting to the fund (Raskin, Beyer, Murray, Wyden, Van Hollen, Neal) are partisan Democrats. Their objections are public, on the record, and politically advantageous to them. That is true of essentially any party-line congressional position.
What the records show. The non-Democratic objections to the fund are documented. Senate Majority Leader Thune (R-SD): “Not a big fan.” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA): “You can’t just make up things whole piece.” The Treasury Department’s General Counsel, a Senate-confirmed Trump appointee who clerked for Justice Thomas, resigned over the settlement. CREW, founded in 2003 as a nonpartisan watchdog and one of the organizations that filed the original emoluments suits against Trump in his first term, called it “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.” The Bulwark, a conservative-establishment publication that opposed Trump but is not a Democratic outlet, called it “the worst grift yet.” The “partisan Democrats only” framing of the objections is not consistent with the documented record.
Where Things Stand Now
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The settlement is signed and posted. The Anti-Weaponization Fund agreement was posted to the Justice Department’s website on the evening of May 18. The tax-amnesty addendum was posted the morning of May 19. Both are public, both are signed, both have legal effect under the administration’s interpretation.
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The case-or-controversy briefs. Judge Kathleen Williams’s May 20 deadline for briefs on whether the lawsuit can proceed is the immediate next step in the litigation. The 93-member House Democratic amicus brief filed May 18 asks her to block the resolution. Democracy Forward, Public Citizen, and CREW have filed separate amicus briefs.[17]
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The commission has not been named. As of publication, the five members of the commission Acting Attorney General Blanche will appoint have not been publicly identified.
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The first claim has been filed. On May 20, Trump adviser Michael Caputo sought $2.7 million from the fund, citing “survivors of the illegal Russiagate investigations,” according to Common Dreams. It is the first publicly reported claim.[18]
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Capitol Police officers have sued to block the fund. On May 20, Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer, and Daniel Hodges, a current D.C. Metropolitan Police officer, both of whom defended the Capitol on January 6, sued in federal court to stop the fund. Their suit argues it violates Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which bars the government from paying debts “incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion,” because the fund could pay the people who attacked them. From the complaint: “Militias like the Proud Boys will use money from the fund to arm and equip themselves.” The suit also argues the Attorney General’s required certification that the payment is “in the interest of the United States” was not met.[19]
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Eligibility for January 6 defendants is unresolved on the record. On May 20, both Acting Attorney General Blanche and Vice President JD Vance declined to rule out payments to people convicted of assaulting police on January 6. Asked by Sen. Jeff Merkley why such people should be eligible, Blanche said: “My feelings don’t matter, senator. I will definitely encourage the commissioners to take everything into account.”[19]
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The congressional response stalled on party lines, then widened. On May 20, Rep. Jamie Raskin moved to subpoena Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and others over the fund; House Republicans blocked the subpoena on a party-line vote.[20] By May 21, at least 25 Republican senators had told Blanche they opposed the fund, Majority Leader Thune adjourned the Senate early to avoid a vote that would have forced Republicans on the record, and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) filed legislation to block it, drawing a public tirade from Trump.[21]
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The IRS has not commented. As of publication, the Internal Revenue Service has not publicly addressed the tax-amnesty addendum. The New York Times reported, per the Guardian’s same-day citation, that career IRS officials had recommended fighting Trump’s lawsuit. The agency settled anyway.[12]
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The IRS’s own legal team had recommended dismissal because the lawsuit was filed too late. The New Republic reported on May 19, citing a leaked 25-page memo from the IRS legal team, that the IRS recommended the Justice Department dismiss Trump’s lawsuit because the two-year statute of limitations on tax-leak claims had already expired by the time the suit was filed. Trump’s personal lawyer Alina Habba was present at the October 2023 trial of Charles Littlejohn — the IRS contractor who leaked the returns — yet Trump’s complaint was not filed until January 2026, beyond the statutory deadline. The memo also questioned whether the IRS should be liable for the actions of its outside contractor. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI): “This all seems to be an obvious abuse of power by the Department of Justice.” Casey Michel, in The New Republic the same week, called the fund “no different than what we see in other kleptocracies.”[22]
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Congressional legislation. Bills introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Ron Wyden that would bar or 100%-tax settlements paid to sitting presidents from the Judgment Fund have not advanced.[16]
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The corruption question is open. Trump University was a $25 million civil fraud settlement. The Trump Foundation was dissolved by court order with a $2 million personal judgment for self-dealing. These are documented prior findings against the same defendant. The Anti-Weaponization Fund is, in dollar terms, approximately 71 times the Foundation judgment.
Sources
2. Government Accountability Office: Judgment Fund — Treasury’s role and limits (GAO Report GAO-15-86). The Judgment Fund is established at 31 U.S.C. § 1304.
3. Office of Government Ethics: Qualified Trusts (5 U.S.C. § 13104(f) implementation)
4. Walter Shaub speech at Brookings Institution (January 11, 2017, PDF) and New York Office of the Attorney General: AG James secures court order against Donald J. Trump, Trump children, and Trump Foundation (November 7, 2019)
5. Common Dreams: 93 House Democrats file amicus brief opposing Trump’s IRS settlement (May 18, 2026) and The Independent: Todd Blanche won’t tell Congress if Jan 6 rioters will be paid (May 19, 2026) and The Bulwark: You’re Getting Robbed by Trump in Broad Daylight (Andrew Egger, May 15, 2026)
7. Washington Post: Trump sues IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over leaked tax records (January 29, 2026) and CNBC: Trump, two sons, Trump Org sue IRS, Treasury for $10 billion (January 29, 2026)
8. HuffPost: Trump tells NBC he ‘won a lot of money’ on a lawsuit no court has ruled on (February 5, 2026) and NBC News: Trump sues IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion over leaked tax records
10. Associated Press: Justice Department announces a $1.7B fund to compensate Trump allies in a deal to drop IRS suit (Fatima Hussein, Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer, May 18, 2026) and Common Dreams: Trump IRS lawsuit settlement would create $1.7 billion ‘slush fund’ (May 15, 2026)
12. Guardian: US justice department ‘forever’ bars IRS from auditing Trump’s past tax returns (Sam Levine, May 19, 2026) and Daily Beast: Trump given sweeping tax amnesty in secret deal (Sarah Ewall-Wice, May 19, 2026)
13. The $230 million figure for the two administrative claims (FBI Russia + Mar-a-Lago) is reported in Associated Press (May 18, 2026) and confirmed in earlier reporting cited in the corruption explainer.
14. Daily Beast: Top Treasury lawyer Brian Morrissey quits over the $1.8B settlement (May 19, 2026)
17. CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington): Amicus brief opposing Trump-IRS settlement (filed earlier in 2026) and the May 18 amicus brief filed by 93 House Democrats (cited in the AP and Common Dreams reporting at sources 10 and 5).
21. The New Republic: Republicans flee work early to avoid voting on the Trump slush fund (May 21, 2026) and The New Republic: Trump rages at GOPer in crazed tirade as slush fund prompts GOP revolt (May 21, 2026)
22. The New Republic: Leaked IRS Memo Proves How Blatant Trump’s Slush Fund Theft Really Is (Malcolm Ferguson, May 19, 2026) and The New Republic: Trump Is Now a World-Class Kleptocrat (Jason Linkins, May 23, 2026)