President Donald Trump has reportedly received a $1.776 billion settlement from his own IRS over his allegation that the agency owed him money for a contractor who leaked his tax returns — and the money is now inciting a full-blown MAGA civil war.
Now, according to conservative commentator Will Sommer, this settlement is causing a civil war within certain ranks of the MAGA movement.
“In April, lawyer Mark McCloskey bowed out of his quixotic quest to win reparations for January 6th rioters,” The Bulwark’s Sommer wrote on Monday.
Although McCloskey’s fellow lawyer Peter Ticktin remained on the case, McCloskey himself claimed last month that he was sick with a terminal lung disease and would not be able to continue assisting January 6th rioters. Yet once Trump announced the settlement, “something miraculous happened,” Sommer wrote. McCloskey suddenly announced his health had improved enough that he could resume the cases.
“The convenient timing of McCloskey’s return to health has not gone unnoticed in the fractious world of January 6th participants, with some reparations-hungry rioters mocking him for coming back right when the money looks set to start flowing,” Sommer wrote. “Meanwhile, according to a series of bitter emails from the two lawyers that I reviewed, Ticktin appears furious that his onetime partner has returned for a piece of the action.”
Sommer quoted Ticktin as writing to his clients over the weekend, “I never stopped representing you, money or no money. I would never quit.”
Sommer argued that this feud may foreshadow the future of this settlement.
“The bad blood between these two looks like a preview of what’s ahead for the right, as January 6th rioters, other Trump world figures who faced investigations, and their lawyers scramble to position themselves for a potential windfall,” Sommer wrote. “Trump today officially settled his lawsuit against the government he leads in exchange for that $1.776 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund,’ which will purportedly be paid to the victims of ‘weaponization and lawfare.’”
As Ticktin told Summer, “I didn’t realize finding out you can make money can cure cancer, but apparently you can.”
Sommer added in his article that “the January 6th rioters have been treated inordinately well, given that they attacked police officers, stampeded the U.S. Capitol, and interrupted congressional proceedings in an attempt to overthrow the results. They were pardoned on the first day of the second Trump administration, freeing many from their incarceration and saving many others from serving any prison time at all. Some J6ers were even refunded the restitution payments they were ordered to make.”
Making matters more confusing, according to Sommer, Trump’s Justice Department has done little to clarify matters as to who will get paid and how.
“Meanwhile, the DOJ has provided painfully little guidance as to how the new slush fund will be doled out,” Sommer wrote. “The department put out a barely-over-one-page memo Monday morning, in which it made clear that once the funds were deposited ‘the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of the funds.’”
He added, sarcastically, “Seems failproof!”
According to Forbes reporter Allison Durkee, Trump’s so-called “Judgment Fund” is only allowed to pay people or entities that are direct parties to the lawsuit — which includes only the president, his sons and a family business. As such, Trump may have to pay taxes on the amount, and other individuals cannot access the money without going through Trump and his associates themselves.
