US President Trump (Image source: AP)
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s administration has created a nearly $1.8 billion fund to settle allegations that the Justice Department improperly targeted his political allies in exchange for the president voluntarily dismissing his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
The settlement creates an “arms control fund” that will pay the legal claims of people who show they have suffered “weaponization” by the U.S. government.The Justice Department said there are no partisan requirements for filing a case, but those terms have often been used by Trump and his allies to describe the criminal cases against them, including those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.“The machinery of government should never be used as a weapon against any American, and this Department intends to right the wrongs of the past while ensuring they never happen again,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer who defended him in three criminal cases, will appoint four of the five members of the committee who will decide the merits of the cases. Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization have filed a lawsuit against the IRS, arguing that the agency should have done more to prevent a former contractor from disclosing his tax returns to the media during the president’s first term.These filings showed that Trump paid little income taxes over many years, the New York Times reported in 2020. Trump filed the lawsuit personally, not in his capacity as president.Reuters
