There are other ways for Trump to sneak $1.8 billion to his criminal pals

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a way to pay his supporters from a slush fund in a manner he and his backers hope will be secret.

“The promised end of President Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund won’t necessarily stop the Department of Justice (DOJ) from making payouts to those who argue they’ve been wronged by the government and who are instead eyeing new pathways to access federal money,” reported The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch. “After acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the controversial fund would ‘not be moving forward,’ Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) noted that the aggrieved have always had a pathway for getting settlements from the government.”

Breitsch added, “‘We have a legal system already in place for people to make claims against the government. That does not need to be reinvented,’ he wrote on social platform X this past week, encouraging would-be claimants to pursue settlements under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).” Breitsch added that Trump could dispense money through the so-called Judgment Fund from a potentially limitless amount, and as a result many Trump supporters who claim to have been the victims of weaponization are filing FTCA claims.

“The anti-weaponization fund was a pleasant surprise, but the Republicans in the Senate, who decided that my family did not deserve restitution, will not stop me,” former Trump adviser Michael Caputo told The Hill. “This [ending of the] anti-weaponization fund is a brief distraction.”

Caputo continued, “It’s not just a beginning for me, it’s a beginning for everybody whose life was destroyed by political weaponization.”

Trump initially created a $1.8 billion slush fund in May as a settlement in a controversial lawsuit. Despite controlling both the IRS and Department of Justice, Trump sued the IRS because an independent contractor leaked his tax returns during his first term, thereby revealing that he had paid little or no income taxes for multiple years and had many undisclosed business failures. Even though no one has ever been compensated for having their tax returns leaked, Trump demanded $10 billion from the IRS, creating a conflict of interest since the Justice Department he controls is responsible for defending the IRS from litigation.

After Judge Kathleen M. Williams ordered all parties involved to appear before her bench by May 20th to determine whether any settlement would be legal, Trump and acting attorney general Todd Blanche rushed a $1.8 billion settlement that would be split between Trump supporters and Trump-affiliated institutions. It also guaranteed Trump will not be audited for his taxes ever. After a public outcry, Trump seemingly dropped his request for the fund while keeping the protection from being audited.

"I assumed we would never see the 'settlement agreement,' or whatever you want to call it, but evidently, DOJ went ahead and posted it on its website,” New Mexico civil litigator Owen Barcala posted on Bluesky about the $1.8 billion settlement. “A couple things are interesting if you can steel your mind for the outrage and horror of its general nature.”

Speaking to AlterNet about the fund, one of the potential applicants Sam Nunberg explained that “I certainly think that the [Robert] Mueller investigation, at a minimum, everyone who was either investigated or a witness should be compensated, because that investigation never should have been initiated.”

Nunberg also told AlterNet. “I don't necessarily fault the rank-and-file staff, but once they opened that investigation, it was really — any association with Donald J. Trump meant you were going to have to hire a white-collar attorney.” Explaining how it personally impacted him, Nunberg said that he had “to inform my clients, as a fiduciary duty, that I've been called into the investigation. Things like that. I thought it was extremely unfair. It was arbitrary. It didn't have to be started.”

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