Donald Trump has not hesitated to launch lawsuits during his second presidency. Shortly after returning to the Oval Office, Trump settled legal cases with major broadcasters and tech giants, and started a new defamation suit against the BBC over its reporting of comments he made at the Jan 6th rally.
But one lawsuit stood out among the crowd. Donald Trump, as an individual, sued the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion over the leaking of his personal tax filings to the New York Times. It was virtually unprecedented for a president to bring any private legal cases while in office – and yet here was Trump suing his own government.
Trump’s claim was that this breach of his privacy had damaged him so hugely that he was owed billions in compensation, despite his net worth increasing dramatically over the period, and his return to the presidency happening at the same time.
In normal circumstances, this claim would have struggled to succeed, not least because it’s hard to say – given Trump is richer than before, and is president again – how the leak damaged Trump at all. But because he is the President, he is ultimately in charge of the government. He was effectively both the plaintiff and the defendant in the case.
The court had noticed this, and was asking awkward questions. The legal system exists to arbitrate disputes between different parties. Given Trump was on both sides of this case, a judge noted it wasn’t actually clear whether that was a dispute, or whether there were two distinct parties.
His legal case might have been thrown out entirely, had the judge been allowed to continue. Against that backdrop, then, it makes sense that Trump and the Department of Justice have suddenly agreed an out-of-court settlement to make the case go away.
Under the terms of the agreement, the US government will create a new fund of $1,776 billion – a sum chosen to mark the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence – which will be distributed entirely at the discretion of five commissioners appointed by Todd Blanche, Trump’s acting attorney general.
The supposed purpose of the “anti-weaponisation fund” is to “compensate” individuals who were targeted by the US government under “weaponisation and lawfare” – terms used by Trump and his allies to categorise any prosecutions or other legal action against Trump supporters.
Trump has, in other words, used the excuse of a lawsuit to create a slush fund of US taxpayer money to compensate his allies, supporters and – should he wish – even his own family and businesses, almost entirely at his own discretion. He himself says he “wasn’t involved in the creation” of the fund.
Trump has abused the presidency like no one else in America’s 250-year history, but this move is extraordinary even by Trump’s own dismally low standards. The Jan 6th rioters – violent thugs who invaded the US Capitol trying to overthrow a legitimate election result – could now stand to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars each from the US government.
Trump’s opponents can see the danger of this fund all too clearly: by doling out financial largesse to people who tried to overthrow US democracy once, Trump clearly provides motivation for others to try to do the same again, should he ask for it – either after the midterms, or the 2028 election result. For those hoping Trump can be dislodged by democratic means, that is a terrifying prospect.
Trump’s supporters try to sell the deal very differently. They claim Trump is being generous to the government by accepting less than $2 billion, rather than the $10 billion he sued for – though legal experts believe the case was likely to be thrown out. They argue the fund is compensating people who were wrongly prosecuted under Biden, even if such people would be able to sue for compensation through the courts if they could prove that.
Politicians have always tried to reward their voters – someone elected by a rural area will try to pass farming subsidies, for example. But this is something different: Trump is not trying to pass middle-class tax cuts, or make gas cheaper for Americans, here.
He is creating a fund that will be administered by his flunkies, that can give life-changing cash to any individual American they choose. That is the stuff of dictatorships, not democracies. Trump is often venal, and his actions often look morally corrupt or dubious. This time, he’s gone further. This fund is a threat to US democracy itself. America needs to pay attention – before it’s too late.
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