Trump administration unveils $1.7bn fund to compensate his allies as he drops tax lawsuit

When the judge asked a group of legal experts to submit an analysis last week, they called Trump's lawsuit "unprecedented"."A sitting president seeks monetary damages for alleged harm to his personal interests from an executive agency that he controls," the experts wrote in what is known as an "amicus brief".The experts cited Trump's own statements that he controls both the IRS and the jutsice department lawyers handling the case.Shortly after the dismissal was filed by Trump's legal team, the Justice Department announced an agreement to establish the so-called Anti-Weaponisation Fund that would provide a "systematic process to hear and redress claims of those who suffered under weaponisation and lawfare". The fund will consist of a five-member commission, four of those appointed by the Attorney General, and will receive $1.776 billion to allow the Justice Department to settle and pay cases. A report on who receives payments will be sent to the attorney general. "The machinery of government should never be weaponised against any American, and it is this Department's intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again," said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. The settlement agreement constituted a "breathtaking abuse of the tax and legal system," Brandon DeBot, policy director for the Tax Law Center at New York University, said in a statement.More than 90 Democrats in the House of Representatives said they had filed a motion to block the settlement. Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin said it was a slush fund for Trump's "private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists. . . and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes". In the lawsuit, Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization had claimed that nothing had been done to prevent the leak of information by a former IRS contractor, Charles Littlejohn. In September 2020 - just ahead of the November presidential election - that information formed the basis of an extensive New York Times investigation into Trump's tax returns. It revealed that Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency in 2016, and no taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years. Trump released the documents himself two years later, in 2022. Littlejohn pleaded guilty in 2023 to stealing tax data from Trump and thousands of wealthy Americans while working as a contractor for the IRS. The following year, he was sentenced to five years in prison.