Read Trump's "settlement" with the Trump admin to create a nearly $2 billion slush fund that Trump ultimately controls

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and Frank Bisignano, the chief executive officer of the I.R.S., signed Monday's “settlement agreement.”

Senior officials in the Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service on Monday signed off of the “settlement agreement” that ended President Donald Trump’s collusive lawsuit against the I.R.S. — an agency Trump oversees — by creating “The Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

It is a cartoonishly evil, corrupt act in defiance of all ethical and democratic norms that is to transfer nearly $2 billion of federal funds ($1,776,000,000, to be precise) into a slush fund over which Trump will have ultimate control. Further, the fund — at least on its face — is aimed at giving money to people such as those prosecuted, convicted, and pardoned over their actions on and surrounding January 6, 2021.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and Frank Bisignano, the chief executive officer of the I.R.S. — both of whom Trump appointed to their positions — signed the “settlement agreement” that led Trump’s lawyers to dismiss the case that was based on his tax returns having been unlawfully disclosed to the media and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to issue an order creating the nearly $1.8 billion fund on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams acceded to Trump’s dismissal of the case — which is automatic under the federal rules — in an order closing the case that was filed Monday night. In that order, though, she noted that since no one submitted the settlement to the court “there is no settlement of record.“ She added:

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,” 28 C.F.R. §§ 50.9, 50.23—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.

However, DOJ has since provided a copy of the settlement agreement — updating its news release about “The Anti-Weaponization Fund” to include it. (The news release initially only included a link to Blanche’s order.)

Some lowlights from the settlement include:

• A “formal apology” to Trump “from the United States.”

• Blanche gets to choose the five members in charge of the fund (one in consultation with an undefined “congressional leadership”), but Trump can fire any of them “without cause,” so, ultimately, they are answerable to Trump.

• What the fund does is apparently going to be “confidential.”

“Entities,” in addition to people, can ask for money if they claim they were “a victim of Lawfare and/or Weaponization.”

• The fund is to look at things like “damages incurred as a result of the Lawfare and Weaponization” and “time the claimant spent in prison … as a result of the Lawfare and Weaponization“ when deciding who to give money to and how much to give them.

  

  

• Trump, as well as Don Jr. and Eric Trump, or the Trump Organization — as the plaintiffs — can challenge the settlement agreement, as well as the I.R.S. and U.S., but, per the terms of the settlement, no one else.

  

• And, per the settlement, there are no appeals from or judicial review of any decisions the fund makes about claims.

  

  All of this in “settling” a case where — as Judge Williams made clear in nearly a page of case citations in her three-page order closing the case — there was not like “an actual case or controversy,” as required for federal courts to have jurisdiction over a case.