Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes as a New York jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts. Seth Wenig/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
President Donald Trump’s economic policies are so clearly based on benefiting those with proximity to the president that critics have denounced them with terms like “crony capitalism” and “communism of pelf.” Now a series of commentators observed that one of the most controversial manifestations of these policies — his $1.776 billion slush fund to Trump supporters who claim they were persecuted by the government — is likely to proceed despite it being ruled illegal by a judge and fiercely opposed even by many members of Trump’s own Republican Party.
“The $1.8 billion slush fund that would help these insurrectionists would be coming from a bigger pot called the Judgment Fund, right?” explained lawyer and legal commentator Katie Phang on MS NOW. She had previously described how Trump’s pick for attorney general, acting attorney general Todd Blanche, has so far not been able to be confirmed because Republican lawmakers like Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas oppose his refusal to promise the slush fund is dead.
“The Judgment Fund is used to pay out settlements and verdicts and judgments that stem from Federal Tort Claims Act litigation, or claims made against the federal government,” Phang explained. “But those FTCA claims get vetted, ostensibly by a legitimate Department of Justice review. So when you think about the idea that there would be somebody who would legitimately, credibly gatekeep these claims — yeah, that's what the FTCA was designed to do. The government screws up, they've got to pay it out.”
She added, “That's a totally separate thing, right? The real corruption here is the initiation of the lawsuit and its genesis. Trump wanted to give cover to create the slush fund for the insurrectionists and for his buddies whom he wanted to be able to pay out money to, including people like Michael Caputo, Steve Bannon, and Michael Flynn. So he created this lawsuit with the whole charade of it. And when a federal judge busted him on it, he essentially said, ‘Oh well, I can just do this the way I want to through a bill.’ That's not going to work either, because as Tillis said, you're not going to get the support from Republicans to get it across the finish line.”
Earlier in the same interview, MS NOW political analyst Steve Benen observed that Trump’s slush fund is so politically toxic, Republican lawmakers — despite normally deferring to Trump’s wishes — have been uncharacteristically bold in taking a stand against it.
“I think it hasn't really been fully explored yet, because when you look back at the context of the Senate right now, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis are taking the lead on this,” Benen said. “But according to both of them, they're not alone. They say that they're representing a variety of Republican senators who share the same concerns they do about the Blanche nomination. And in fact, in recent days, we've seen a lot of evidence of that. We saw [Republican Sen.] Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose term in Congress is also soon ending, saying he has concerns. We've seen Alaska's [Republican Sen.] Lisa Murkowski stepping up and saying, ‘You know what? Maybe Blanche's confirmation isn't going to happen.’”
Benen added, “And so really, this resistance isn't limited to two people stepping up. We're seeing broader concern among GOP senators saying maybe Blanche's nomination is no longer a sure thing.”
The slush fund in question was created because Trump sued the IRS due to an independent contractor leaking his tax returns in 2018, thereby showing he had not paid income taxes for multiple years and had a string of previously-undisclosed business failures. Even though no one has ever been compensated for this issue and has instead merely received apologies, Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion. When a judge overseeing the case questioned the lawsuit’s legality — noting that Trump both controls the IRS he is using and the Justice Department that is supposed to defend the IRS — the president and Blanche rushed to “settle” the suit for $1.776 billion, to be dispensed to Trump supporters and Trump-affiliated institutions, as well as a pledge to spare Trump and his family all future audits.
Judge Kathleen M. Williams quickly overturned the settlement, saying that it was an illegal form of self-dealing and could not be ethically implemented. By contrast, one of the potential beneficiaries of the slush fund — former 2016 Trump campaign worker and lawyer Sam Nunberg — told AlterNet in June that he believes the so-called “anti-weaponization fund” is justified.
“If it's a political witch hunt, yeah. I think there should be some kind of compensation fund for it, and I don't care what party the people are from,” Nunberg argued.