Trump IRS settlement: A $1.776 billion slush fund and tax audit immunity
It has just been announced that Donald Trump will settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for a cool $1.776 billion (the 1776 number is his “homage” to America’s upcoming 250th birthday) and lifetime immunity for himself, his family, and his businesses against future IRS tax audits.
I posted an article a few days ago about how Donald Trump has become the fulfillment of a warning once made by Thomas Jefferson about how an artificial aristocracy (a term used to describe people who rise to positions of leadership based only on wealth instead of talent and who use their position to acquire more wealth) could ultimately lead to the end of the American experiment. Now, with the news of a nearly $2 billion settlement where he was both the claimant and the defendant, we are witnessing what some are calling impeachment-level behavior by the artificial aristocrat (via Jonah Goldberg LA Times Opinion):
The British statesman Edmund Burke famously argued that one of the “fundamental rules” of a decent society was that “no man should be judge in his own cause.” For the founders, this insight informed the logic of the entire constitutional project. Burke’s observation was so universally agreed upon it often came up — sometimes without attribution — in debates at the Constitutional and ratifying conventions.
James Madison invokes the idea in Federalist 10, in the context of faction and the need to have separation of powers. “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause; because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.”
On Monday, President Trump settled a $10-billion lawsuit brought by himself. In his first term, Trump’s tax returns were illegally leaked. When Trump returned to the presidency he filed suit against the Internal Revenue Service. So, as a constitutional matter, Trump is suing the executive branch he runs for a crime committed by the IRS back when he ran it in his first term.
Realizing that the courts might find this too cute to countenance, the Justice Department and IRS — both, again, run by Trump — compromised by creating a $1,776,000,000 fund (that “1776” before all the zeros is a play on the country’s 250th birthday) that Trump will control. Its primary function would be to compensate the Jan. 6 rioters, all of whom he has already pardoned. (Emphasis mine)
Not content, however, with pocketing a cool $1.776 billion of taxpayer money to do with as he pleases, Donald Trump instructed his former personal attorney and current acting AG in charge of the DOJ, Todd Blanche, to include a lifetime exemption from IRS audits for Trump, his family, and his businesses. This addition was made AFTER the settlement was created (via Politico):
The Justice Department on Tuesday expanded the just-announced settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the leaking of his tax returns to include a pledge that the IRS will no longer pursue any claims it may have against Trump, his family members and his companies over unpaid taxes.
The nine-page settlement agreement DOJ released Monday, setting up a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of alleged weaponization of law enforcement, did not mention any resolution of disputes over Trump’s tax returns, which he has repeatedly claimed were under protracted audits by the IRS.
However, a one-page document posted on the DOJ website early Tuesday includes a sweeping release under which the IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing “examinations” of Trump, “related or affiliated individuals,” and related trusts and businesses. The waiver specifically encompasses “tax returns filed before the effective date” of the settlement, which was Monday.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed the addendum, dated Tuesday. It does not bear the signature of any representative of the IRS or any current Trump lawyers. (Emphasis mine)
Remember when MAGA praised Trump for being the greatest law-and-order president God ever created? Yeah … me too.
Here’s something for you to chew on: In a world where pedophiles and sexual predators enjoy the protection of Donald Trump, one of the J6ers likely to receive money from the taxpayer-funded slush fund is Andrew Paul Johnson, a Florida handyman who was recently sentenced to life in prison for molesting two children after receiving a his pardon from Donald Trump for the role he played on Jan. 6, 2021. And get this, Johnson apparently knew that Trump was suing the IRS for the purpose of compensating the J6 insurrectionists even before the settlement.
When sheriff’s deputies began investigating the child molestation allegations against Johnson in July 2025, one of his victims told investigators that Johnson said that he expected to receive compensation for being a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant and he would put the child in his will to inherit any leftover money. “This tactic was believed to be used to keep (the child) from exposing what Andrew had done,” the report said.
When questioned by the Senate Appropriations Committee about this situation, acting AG Blanche would neither confirm nor deny the possibility of the convicted child molester receiving any money from the slush fund.
Following the announcement of the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund, the Treasury Department’s top lawyer, Brian Morrissey (a Trump appointee and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas), resigned instead of putting his signature on the transfer of nearly $1.8 billion dollars into an account that will be controlled by a five-person commission appointed by acting AG Blanche and will serve at the pleasure of Trump. In other words, every member of the so-called commission can be fired by Trump.
When Trump was asked by a reporter about the possibility of his family members receiving money from the fund, he avoided answering the question, choosing instead to deny that he will have anything to do with how the money is distributed. However, his personal legal team released a statement that Trump, his family, his supporters, and “countless other America First Patriots” had been targeted illegally by the Department of Justice and the IRS. Is that a checklist of likely recipients? I’ll let you make up your own mind.
Trump is a president living lavishly in a taxpayer-funded mansion, who jets around to weekend golf getaways at taxpayer expense, and dismisses the financial struggles of Americans trying to make ends meet as the price on nearly everything explodes thanks to his war in Iran.
Nearly six-in-ten Americans say the country is worse off now than it was a year ago. Groceries cost more. Utilities cost more. Gasoline costs more. Housing costs more. For millions of families, this is not a golden age, it’s a painful reminder of the artificial aristocracy that is the Donald Trump presidency.
Trump is using his presidential power to privatize the presidency as he expands his wealth, protects his investments, and rules in gilded comfort at taxpayer expense. While Americans struggle, Trump is using his position for personal enrichment and private accumulation.
When a president turns public office into a source of personal revenue, corruption does not stop at enrichment. It spreads. It spreads into the Justice Department. It spreads into the courts. It spreads into law enforcement. It spreads into the very machinery that is supposed to hold power accountable. It destroys the American experiment.
As I stated in my previous article, it’s time to reclaim our role as the ultimate check on government power, otherwise the Constitution becomes window dressing and “we the people” become subjects.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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