MW Trump's IRS settlement features a $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization' fund for allies. Here's who may get the money.
By Victor Reklaitis
Critics blast the potential taxpayer-funded payouts to Trump supporters and make an effort to stop them
The Trump administration's Department of Justice says a new $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" aims to to compensate people deemed to have endured "weaponization and lawfare."
Trump administration officials on Monday confirmed reports that they're setting up an "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to compensate people deemed to have endured "weaponization and lawfare," with the $1.8 billion fund coming as part of a settlement agreement that ends President Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
Trump and his business conglomerate, the Trump Organization, plan to drop their lawsuit and in exchange will get this fund to "redress claims of others who suffered," along with "a formal apology but no monetary payment or damages of any kind," the Department of Justice said in a news release.
"There is legal precedent for such a fund, most notably the 'Keepseagle' case where the Obama administration created a $760 million fund to redress various claims alleging racism against the federal government over a period of decades," the DOJ added.
So who looks likely to be viewed by the Trump administration as a victim of a DOJ that was acting improperly?
Trump himself has pointed to trade adviser Peter Navarro and longtime ally Rudy Giuliani. The president said in a social-media post last year that Navarro had "experienced the vicious Weaponization of the 'Justice' System," and he wrote earlier this month that Giuliani "was treated so badly."
Besides Navarro and Giuliani, former Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Mike Flynn also could be viewed as having been harmed by a weaponized justice system, according to Roger Kimball, a Trump supporter and conservative commentator who is the editor and publisher of the New Criterion. Kimball mentioned them in an article last year for the Spectator, a conservative magazine, as he argued that Trump "inherited a weaponized justice system."
Former Trump attorneys John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, former Trump aide Mark Meadows and the more than 1,200 people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol also are among those "indicted, prosecuted, disbarred and/or jailed," Kimball wrote.
Flynn already has been due to get about $1.2 million after settling a suit against the DOJ in March.
Democratic lawmakers and some public-interest groups slammed the creation of the $1.8 billion fund.
"President Trump used the threat of a lawsuit against the government alleging taxpayer privacy violations to draw $1.8 billion from the public for himself and his political allies for unrelated purposes," said the Tax Law Center at NYU Law in a statement. The move is "a breathtaking abuse of the tax and legal system," and the payout "should be taxable as income to the president and other plaintiffs since it is settling their claims," the center added.
Public Citizen accused Trump and the DOJ of creating "a slush fund to make payouts to Trump supporters and cronies." It said the public needs to know the details immediately so it has filed expedited records requests.
House Democrats said in a statement that their Litigation Task Force has filed a motion to "block this unconstitutional taxpayer-funded settlement." They are "taking a stand for the American taxpayers that would be forced to foot the bill for this mess, and are calling on the court to block any unconstitutional settlements in the matter," said Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of California, in a statement.
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said in a social-media post that if Trump follows through with the new fund, it will be "the most brazen theft of taxpayer dollars by any president in history."
-Victor Reklaitis
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 18, 2026 15:44 ET (19:44 GMT)
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