LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump is setting up a nearly $1.8 billion fund that could award taxpayer money to January 6 defendants. The money is part of a settlement to end a case Trump brought against his own government.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
NPR's Carrie Johnson has been following the case. So, Carrie, Trump's lawsuit against the government he leads was - I guess the word I'm looking for - maybe unusual, to say the least. So it sounds like this settlement is also unusual, too.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Very much so. No one could come up with an example of a president taking his own administration to court until this year. Trump had sued the IRS for $10 billion after a contractor leaked his tax returns to the press back in 2019. But a judge in the case started asking some tough questions about the president being on both sides of this dispute. And this week, as a deadline loomed for Trump's lawyers to respond, they abandoned the case. The Justice Department says Trump's going to get an apology but no direct financial payment. Instead, they're creating an anti-weaponization fund - $1.776 billion - to compensate people who have been targeted by the Biden administration. Trump talked about this fund with reporters yesterday.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is reimbursing people that were horribly treated - horribly treated. It's anti-weaponization. They've been weaponized. They've been, in some cases, imprisoned wrongly.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Carrie, if the president is on both sides of this case and he says it's over, is anyone going to be able to object to it?
JOHNSON: Nearly 100 Democrats in Congress tried. They filed court papers asking to intervene in this Florida IRS case. Matt Platkin is their lawyer.
MATT PLATKIN: If it is OK for a president to sue himself and then come up with a huge amount of money that he's going to pay for totally unrelated things, then there is no longer a point to Congress playing a role in the appropriations process. The Constitution says Congress appropriates money. Congress passes laws. The president must execute those laws.
JOHNSON: Last night, the federal judge in charge of this case closed the door on it, since the Trump administration moved to drop it and DOJ did not file any settlement terms with her to review. Then after she dismissed the case, DOJ posted the terms of the settlement agreement online. Donald Sherman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington says this is one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.
MARTÍNEZ: So the new anti-weaponization fund - who is eligible to apply?
JOHNSON: The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, will appoint members of a board to oversee this fund, and Trump will be able to fire them without cause. Blanche, of course, is a former personal lawyer to Trump. He said in a statement the machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and DOJ wants to right past wrongs.
This fund is going to be created from a pool of taxpayer money. It's not clear the government will have to disclose who receives that money. And watchdogs say they're really worried that people who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, are now going to be in line for compensation. DOJ says this fund is going to finish its work in December 2028. That's shortly before Trump is scheduled to leave the White House.
MARTÍNEZ: One more thing - any precedent for this enormous fund?
JOHNSON: The Trump administration says President Obama did it years ago to compensate farmers who suffered racial discrimination over many decades. But people who worked at the DOJ say there are some big differences. A judge signed off on that settlement, and this settlement is three times bigger, and the judge here did not weigh in. Rupa Bhattacharyya worked on these issues at DOJ. She told me Trump officials had moved to abolish these kinds of third-party settlements only to embrace them now. And she says this is an abuse of taxpayer dollars. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, is due on Capitol Hill today for testimony about the budget, and that may give us a hint about how Republican lawmakers will react.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Carrie Johnson. Carrie, thanks.
JOHNSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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