|
 |
This edition of PN is made possible by paid subscribers. Become one ⬇️
Yesterday the Trump administration made it known that it’s tapping out on the “weaponization” slush fund … maybe.
First Axios and then every other news outlet simultaneously reported that the $1.776 billion payout to Trump’s pals is “dead for now.”
As for the administration, though, they’re putting nothing in writing.
And not even Trump’s fellow Republicans will take his word that this theft of taxpayer dollars won’t rise from the dead.
Trump v. Trump
In theory, the slush fund was created to settle a lawsuit Trump filed in January against the IRS.
Back in 2020, a contractor named Charles Littlejohn leaked more than 400,000 tax returns of the wealthiest Americans to ProPublica and the New York Times. As a victim of the leak, Trump was entitled to recover his actual damages under the Privacy Act, codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552a, and the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. § 7431. But the statute of limitations is two years from the date of discovery, and Trump absolutely knew about the leak years before that.
In fact, Trump sent his lawyer Alina Habba to represent him at Littlejohn’s plea hearing in October 2023. Nevertheless, Trump demanded $10 billion — a number totally unmoored to any claim of actual harm suffered — insisting that he didn’t find out about the leak until 2024.
 |
|
Everything about this case suggests that it was a collusive effort between Trump and the government he controls. No lawyer for the Justice Department ever entered an appearance, and the requests to delay the government’s answer to the complaint were docketed “jointly,” but signed by Trump’s lawyers alone.
Smelling a rat, Judge Kathleen Williams ordered both sides to brief the threshold question of whether she had jurisdiction to hear the case at all. Article III courts can only hear live cases and controversies, and a president suing the an agency he controls doesn’t look much like a real dispute. Trump himself confirmed as much on Air Force One, telling reporters “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself.”
