Chapter 1: What is the purpose of Trump's $1.8 billion fund?
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From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. In a move that shocked lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
President Trump is dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. The Democrats and others are crying foul over what his administration plans to do instead.
The Justice Department announced an almost $2 billion fund of taxpayer money to compensate people that the administration claims have been victims of, quote, weaponization and lawfare.
Among those who could apply for payouts, the nearly 1,600 rioters charged in connection with the January 6th Capitol insurrection.
This is reimbursing people that were horribly treated, horribly treated. It's anti-weaponization.
Today, my colleague Andy Duren on the story of how this came about, who might get the money, and the bipartisan outrage that has ensued.
He's setting up a $1.7 billion political slush fund for the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and his other political lieutenants and hangers-on.
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Chapter 2: Who are the potential beneficiaries of the fund?
Trump and then all these other wealthy individuals to The Times and ProPublica. And then he was sentenced to prison in the beginning of 2024.
Obviously, leaking somebody's tax information is a crime.
Yes, it is a crime, and it's also something that people can sue the IRS for. So there is a civil lawsuit process that exists for people who think that their tax information has been improperly released by the IRS. They can sue the IRS and potentially get damages for that.
And so in January, President Trump, two of his sons in the family business, demanded at least $10 billion from the IRS for the leak of this information, basically arguing that the IRS should have stopped Charles Littlejohn from being able to do this.
And as you said, people can sue the IRS when their personal tax information is compromised, is leaked. That is what he did. The difference here, though, is that he's not just a private citizen. He is suing a government that he oversees.
Yes. I mean, this was and is an extremely unusual situation, if not unprecedented entirely. I mean, not only does the president control the leader of the Internal Revenue Service, the agency that he is suing, and the Treasury Department, which was also named in the suit. You know, he chooses many of the people who lead those agencies and is involved in their decision making. Right.
He has also played an enormous role in reshaping the Justice Department and kind of molding it in his image in a variety of ways. And the Justice Department is supposed to be the IRS's lawyer in this case. But, you know, there have been all sorts of things that the Justice Department has done in Trump's second term that are far beyond what a historically independent Justice Department would do.
Right, he's
publicly called on the Justice Department to prosecute those that he considers his political enemies. Democratic lawmakers have faced federal investigation under his administration.
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Chapter 3: How did the fund come into existence?
Exactly, which I do not think is a coincidence, obviously. But yeah, this is a huge amount of money that will be drawn from an account called the Judgment Fund. which is basically a pot of money that the Justice Department can use to settle legal claims against the United States. So anytime the government is sued and they want to settle, they can use money from this fund.
It's not usually quite this much that's taken out of it at a time, but they will be withdrawing money from that account, depositing it in a separate account, which will be controlled by five people appointed by the Attorney General. And they will consider claims from people who say that they have been victimized by the federal government and pay them for it.
You know, there's a lot that we still don't know and are hoping to find out about this money, including exactly how claims for payment will be evaluated, what... weaponization means exactly when the Justice Department says that and how they'll decide how much money they should be paid.
We still don't even know who these five people are that will be controlling this money and making these decisions. And obviously, they'll play a huge role in all of this. So there are a lot of questions across Washington right now about what this could ultimately look like.
Has something like this ever happened before?
I mean, I think it's safe to say that while the Justice Department does settle other lawsuits, they've never done something quite like this before.
Can you just talk a little bit, Andy, about the types of people that theoretically could be eligible to apply for this fund? Like, who are we talking about here?
Yeah, so all the Justice Department themselves have said about this are people who are victims of quote-unquote weaponization and quote-unquote lawfare. But in terms of people who believe that they'll be eligible and people who are excited about this, I mean, one of the main groups...
we've heard from so far are people who were convicted on January 6, 2021, for storming the Capitol and who President Trump previously pardoned. And there are other similar supporters and political allies of the president who say that under President Obama, the Justice Department, the FBI improperly investigated them basically because they were Trump supporters.
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