The $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” just announced by the Department of Justice may not be 100 percent illegal, but it’s still a gross embarrassment that the Trump administration should rescind.
Here’s what we know so far. Back in January, President Donald Trump, along with his eldest sons and the Trump Organization, sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for $10 billion over their tax returns leaking between 2018 and 2020. That suit was tricky, to put it mildly, because Trump is now essentially in charge of the IRS, and it’s a long-settled maxim of the law that a man “cannot sue himself.” After all, what would prevent President Trump, as the defendant, from agreeing to pay $10 billion of taxpayer money to Trump the plaintiff, even if the lawsuit had no legal merit?
The presiding judge in the case called for a hearing on this issue, suggesting she might have to dismiss the case because of it. But this past Monday, possibly to avoid that hearing, the “parties” to the case announced a “settlement” in which Trump and the other plaintiffs agreed to drop their claims and, in exchange, the Justice Department—of which Trump is also essentially in charge—agreed to create an “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
This fund, according to the published settlement agreement, will compensate people who were victims of “lawfare” and “weaponization,” which are defined as the “use of the levers of government power by Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents to target individuals, groups, and entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons.”
