Donald Trump

Trump's 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' Marks a Pattern of Trying To Profit From the Presidency

Since the beginning of his first term, the president has repeatedly used his office for personal gain.

Jacob Sullum | 7.9.2026 1:20 PM

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(Illustration: Midjourney)

"I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself," President Donald Trump told reporters a few days after he sued the IRS. He wasn't kidding: His January 29 lawsuit, which alleged damages caused by an IRS contractor's illegal leaking of Trump's tax returns, pitted him against an agency he oversees, represented by Justice Department lawyers who also answer to him.

The result of Trump's admitted self-dealing was not pretty. The "settlement" that the president reached with himself, which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on May 18, included $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for purported victims of the Biden administration's "lawfare and weaponization." It also included protection from liability for tax violations and any other federal offenses that Trump or his family might have committed.

Neither of those provisions had anything to do with Trump's claims against the IRS, which in any case were legally barred because he missed the statutory deadline for filing his lawsuit. But Trump, who prides himself on being a tough negotiator, has a soft spot for himself.

Trump's "Anti-Weaponization Fund," which was designed to reward his political allies, provoked a fierce bipartisan backlash that persuaded Blanche to abandon the scheme two weeks after announcing it. The sweeping immunity deal got less attention, and Blanche says it remains in place. Judging from just one IRS dispute involving Trump's claims of business losses, that dispensation could save him more than $100 million in taxes, interest, and penalties.

Under the pretext of a bogus lawsuit, Trump obtained favors for himself, his family, and his supporters, approved by underlings eager to please their boss. And that jaw-dropping scam is just one example of the many ways Trump has used his office for personal gain. He has shown a complete disregard for the appearance of impropriety, conflicts of interest, the ethical implications of self-dealing, and even the rule of law. His corruption is so flagrant and multifaceted that previous presidential scandals in this category pale by comparison.

The IRS Settlement Gave Trump Immunity From Federal Tax Claims 

The May 18 "settlement agreement," which was signed by IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr., and Trump's personal lawyers, described the Anti-Weaponization Fund as a response to abuses of "government power" by "Democrat" officials. It complained that "the Biden Administration" had "target[ed]" people for "improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons."

Although Trump himself would not have been eligible for compensation, he counts himself among those victims. The agreement noted that he had filed "two claims for relief pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act" based on the federal investigations of his 2016 campaign's alleged ties to Russia and his handling of classified documents that he took with him when he left office in January 2021.

Trump sought financial compensation from the Justice Department for "the Russia-collusion hoax" and "the unlawful raid of Mar-a-Lago." Those claims were "pending at the administrative level," meaning that officials serving at the president's pleasure were deciding how much taxpayer money he should get to make up for his ordeals. Their boss thought $230 million was about right, but he magnanimously dropped his claims in exchange for a much bigger payout: $1.8 billion in rewards for his friends and followers.

According to the agreement, the five members of the board charged with doling out that money would be appointed by Blanche and could be dismissed by Trump at any time for any reason. The board would not be required to publicly disclose its procedures or decisions, and it would stop accepting claims a month and a half before the inauguration of the next president.

Trump made it clear who the intended beneficiaries were. "I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!" he explained four days after the "settlement" was announced. Those "others" presumably included the 1,600 or so Trump supporters charged with participating in the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, since Trump had already pardoned them and had frequently portrayed them as victims of government persecution.

Trump confirmed that impression in a Meet the Press interview a few weeks later. "People have been hurt so badly by radical-left lunatics that worked for the Biden administration and Sleepy Joe," he said. The rioters "were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization," he added, and "many of those people should be compensated." Including rioters who had been convicted of assaulting police officers? Trump did not rule it out, even though that prospect had dismayed the Republican legislators who objected to the Anti-Weaponization Fund.

By that point, Blanche had declared that "we're not moving forward with the fund, period." But he said the "separate attorney general order" that he issued on May 19 was unaffected by that change of heart. Blanche's order, which he presented as an addendum to the "settlement agreement," barred the IRS from pursuing claims against Trump or his family based on their past tax returns.

The protection went beyond the IRS. The addendum said "the United States" is "FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED" from pursuing "any and all claims" against Trump or his family regarding "any matters currently pending or that could be pending" before the IRS, the Treasury Department, or "other agencies or departments."

DOJ's Handling of the IRS Case Reflects Clear Conflicts of Interest 

The immunity deal resembles a preemptive self-pardon, except that it extends further, encompassing civil violations as well as criminal offenses. No president has ever attempted to pardon himself, and it is not clear whether such an act of clemency would be legal. It would certainly generate a vociferous political response, since it would create the appearance that the president is above the law and contradict the principle that no one should be a judge in his own case. Blanche's order, which shields Trump and his family from the penalties that ordinary Americans face when they run afoul of federal law, is outrageous for the same reasons.

Neither the immunity deal nor the promise of payouts to Trump's allies was logically related to his complaint that the IRS had failed to properly supervise contractors entrusted with confidential tax information. And Trump obtained those huge favors even though his lawsuit was fatally flawed.

Trump preposterously claimed the disclosure of his tax returns had caused "at least" $10 billion in damages. In addition to offering that improbable estimate of the injury he had suffered, he filed the lawsuit more than two years after learning about the leak, exceeding the time limit set by the statute he invoked. That law covers unauthorized disclosures by "any officer or employee of the United States." So even if Trump had filed his lawsuit on time, he would have faced the challenge of arguing that a contractor employed by a consulting business fit into that category—a point that the Justice Department has disputed in other cases involving similar claims.

Despite those legal weaknesses, the Justice Department never bothered to contest Trump's claims, in sharp contrast with the way it usually treats such lawsuits. That failure highlighted the conflicts of interest created by a case in which both sides were represented by lawyers who worked for Trump. Further compromising the Justice Department's ability to defend the IRS, an executive order that Trump issued in February 2025 bars the government's lawyers from taking legal positions at odds with the president's.

The situation was so bizarre that Kathleen Williams, the federal judge overseeing the case in the Southern District of Florida, questioned whether it involved a genuine controversy between adverse parties, as required for the lawsuit to proceed. Trump dropped his case two days before the deadline for briefing on that issue, so Williams never resolved it. Nor did she have a chance to review the settlement. But on May 29, Williams ordered Trump's lawyers to address "grievous allegations" about that cozy arrangement, including "charges of collusion" and "the assertion that the dismissal in this case was premised on deception by the Parties." Williams was mulling "whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the 'victim of a fraud.'"

In a June 12 response to that inquiry, Trump's lawyers insisted that the Justice Department had reached "a fully proper government settlement" after weighing the merits of their client's claims and assessing the cost of defending against them. They conceded that "no Defendant ever filed an answer, a motion for summary judgment, or any other responsive pleading" at "any point in this case." But they said "the absence of filed appearances" and the government's "decision not to assert defenses that were available in parallel litigation" did not count as evidence of collusion.

Responding to that brief a week later, 35 retired federal judges, including former 4th Circuit Judge Michael Luttig and several other Republican appointees, said it "only underscores the need to investigate whether the parties have perpetrated a fraud on this Court and corrupted the integrity of the judicial process." The suggestion that the Justice Department thought opposing the lawsuit would cost more than settling it, Luttig et al. noted, was "laughable given the facts of this case: a settlement worth nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds plus a capacious and extraordinary general release that purports to forfeit claims for substantial sums in unpaid taxes and other potential damages and fines." Such "monumental relief," they noted, "dwarfs any conceivable 'cost of defense.'" 

35 Retired Federal Judges Slam Trump's 'Laughable' Defense of His 'Obviously Collusive' IRS Settlement

Blanche "did not want the Justice Department........

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