Andrew Duehren

And my initial reporting is that this resignation was in part because of the creation of this fund.

So the Justice Department has said that the president himself and his two sons and the Trump organization, which, again, are the people who and the entities that brought the suit in the first place, will not be paid out of the fund themselves.

That said, we learned on Tuesday that another provision in this agreement between the

Trump and the Justice Department is that the IRS will drop any audits it has of Trump, his family members and any related business entities, which is itself very unusual and extraordinary concession to make to the president and is also one that could directly benefit him financially.

I mean, there it's unclear what sort of audits the president himself may be facing right now, but it's potentially a protection against

that could deliver him tens of millions of dollars in direct financial benefit.

If the IRS was planning to charge him more in taxes and now they are not going to be able to under this agreement, that is something that could go directly into his pockets.

I mean, essentially, again, The Times has reported and it's been publicly reported that the president has faced audits in the past in which if the IRS won, essentially, the president would owe more than $100 million in additional taxes.

And so we don't know what the situation is now, what audits he and his family members may be facing.

But this has robbed the IRS of the opportunity to demand that the Trumps pay the taxes that the IRS says that they may owe under the law.

We'll find out.

So I think on one level, there was an attempt by some House Democrats to intervene in the original lawsuit that President Trump filed and can further try and convince the judge to put a stop to it.

Obviously, that ship has now sailed.

So I think the question now is whether Congress takes any steps to change how money can be spent on legal settlements generally or specifically trying to address this situation.

So under the Constitution, Congress has the power of the purse.

That's a power that's certainly been recognized.

eroded under this presidency and that the Trump administration has tried to kind of pull back into the executive branch.

But it is something that at least theoretically, Congress could take some steps and pass some laws to address.

But it's unclear if that will actually happen.

I think we should think about this in the broader context of what President Trump has hoped to accomplish in his return to office.