Last week, during a White House event with law enforcement officials to celebrate National Police Week, Donald Trump said something that any other time in history would have shocked the assembled officers to hear a president say. “We have a man who is doing a great job, I’ll tell you,” he said. “I knew it! Because he kept me out of jail for years. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, he kept me out of jail.”
The roomful of cops dutifully applauded, but the truth behind Trump’s statement is something else entirely. The president wasn’t saved from a prison sentence by any legal brilliance on the part of Blanche. Trump was kept out of jail by a Supreme Court ruling and the 49.8% of Americans who voted for him in 2024 — and who apparently think it’s fine for a president to be a convicted felon. Still, Blanche has shown himself to be Trump’s devoted servant, and he is dedicated to proving it more every day. He is the Roy Cohn Trump has been waiting for.
Blanche’s fingerprints are all over Monday’s announcement that the Justice Department had created a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate allies of the president who claim they were targeted by Democrats, including the Biden Justice Department, in a directed campaign of lawfare. Since the fund would operate at the expense of American taxpayers, legal experts are already decrying it as yet another example of the president’s propensity for self-dealing. Donald K. Sherman, who serves as president of the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called the fund’s establishment “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.”
The fund’s formation was part of an agreement by Trump to drop his family’s lawsuit against the IRS in what was an outright extortion attempt against the federal government on the part of the first family.
Six years ago, an IRS employee leaked tax returns from Trump and the Trump Organization — an illegal act for which the perpetrator, a former IRS contractor, is serving a five-year stint in federal prison. Trump and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, sued the IRS for $10 billion claiming “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.” In other words, Trump claimed that showing his tax returns to the public — as previous presidential candidates had voluntarily done for 40 years before his election in 2016 — was so harmful to him that he needed billions of dollars to make up for it.
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But that wasn’t all. The other problem with the case was that he set himself up as both the judge and the jury, since he essentially filed the lawsuit against himself. As Mother Jones’ Michael Mechanic put it, “the primary legal question in Trump v. IRS is whether a president’s government lawyers can mount a meaningful defense against a president’s personal lawyers — in this case pertaining to the transgressions of that president’s own administration during his first term. The correct answer is: no, of course not.”
This was particularly true since Blanche, the government lawyer in charge, is the president’ s former personal lawyer, the man Trump bragged had “kept him out of jail” numerous times, and who made it clear when he was named acting attorney general that he would be following Trump’s orders.
In exchange for dropping his lawsuit against the IRS, Trump and his sons will receive an apology from the government. The president also agreed to withdraw another suit against the government for its investigations into connections between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, and for the classified documents case following his defeat in 2020. He had asked for $230 million in damages.
The agreement, and particularly the weaponization fund’s creation, places the federal government in dangerous territory: It will now be funneling taxpayer money directly to Trump’s allies.
The agreement, and particularly the weaponization fund’s creation, places the federal government in dangerous territory: It will now be funneling taxpayer money directly to Trump’s allies, potentially including those who sought to overturn a free and fair election.
Under the fund’s rules, the Jan. 6 rioters, many of whom faced prosecution and prison for their actions — and were later pardoned by Trump — could apply for restitution from a “commission” that will determine who gets a payout. That body, which will apparently be called The President Donald J. Trump Truth and Justice Commission, will ultimately answer to — you guessed it — Trump himself.
What this means in practice is that the government could be paying off the very people who sought to overthrow it. In doing so, it would create a powerful incentive for others to follow in their footsteps and potentially reap a lucrative payday.
We don’t yet know who else might be on the list of possible recipients. But since Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn has already received a bundle despite the fact that he pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI, it’s fair to assume that most who were investigated as part of the Russia investigation will apply for compensation. In fact, any Trump crony, donor or even voters who got into trouble with the feds could probably file a claim that they were targeted by Biden.
In his second term, Trump has been using the government in every way possible to force institutions and individuals alike to bow down and do his bidding. He remains thirsty for retribution against his perceived enemies. But like any good cult leader or Mob boss, he knows he needs to offer rewards and incentives.
Trump’s allies, including those who committed violence and went to jail defending his lie that he won the 2020 election, should be paid handsomely for their sacrifices, he feels. After all, he may very well need them again.
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