Earlier ruling found Trump IRS lawsuit was pretense for fund creation
A federal magistrate judge in Virginia has ordered the Trump administration to disclose who structured a controversial $1.8bn “anti-weaponization fund” designed to recompense victims of political lawfare. US magistrate judge Ivan Davis of the Eastern District of Virginia issued the discovery order in a lawsuit brought by the non-profit Democracy Forward on behalf of plaintiffs including a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest against an immigration raid in California.
The order compels the government to reveal who assembled the structure of the now-defunct fund. “Today’s order granting discovery is a significant step in getting to the bottom of the slush fund,” Aman George, senior counsel at Democracy Forward, said. “We will continue to meet the government in court until our investigation is complete and the slush fund is permanently halted.”
The discovery fight comes two months after US district judge Kathleen Williams ruled that Trump’s $10bn lawsuit against the IRS — which was settled by establishing the compensation fund — had only ever been pretense. “There was never adverseness between the parties; there was never a case or controversy; and there was never a question as to who would prevail,” Williams said in the ruling. She added that the lawsuit had been brought “for an improper purpose – to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact.”
The proposed compensation scheme was set up as part of the settlement Trump reached with the IRS over a lawsuit concerning the leak of his tax returns. The agreement shielded the president and his family from future tax audits.
Last month, Attorney General Todd Blanche — who had proposed the compensation fund before his confirmation hearing — told Fox News Sunday the fund was finished. “The fund is dead or whatever word you want to use,” Blanche said. “It never started. So, it’s not as if the fund is coming back.”
Blanche said Trump “believes the justice department was weaponized against a lot of Americans” under the Biden administration, adding that “it really hurt them financially.” Asked about the agreement itself, Blanche said “there were never commissioners” in charge of the “payout pot.”
Democrats have argued the proposed fund would have been used to compensate prosecuted and since-pardoned January 6 rioters, among others. Senate Democrat Cory Booker said the agreement guaranteed “nothing … no guarantees whatsoever that this slush fund still can’t go forward.”
Trump has said he regrets the fund’s abandonment but has not ruled out alternative routes to compensation. “It is dead, but you know, I wish it weren’t,” Trump said at a July cabinet meeting. “To be honest with you, I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused.”
The proposed fund drew bipartisan criticism in Washington, including opposition from Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and it put Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general at risk. Critics noted that the document demanded by lawmakers did not include signatories to the initial agreement, leaving open the possibility the fund could be revived.