The IRS will not be auditing Donald Trump's old tax returns. Not now, not ever.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order Tuesday that permanently closes out any IRS examination of Trump's prior returns, shuts down existing claims against Trump, his family, and his businesses, and covers everything filed before the May 18 settlement date. No expiration, no wiggle room.
The order came out of a lawsuit Trump filed in January seeking $10 billion from the agency after contractor Charles Littlejohn was exposed for stealing his confidential tax records and handing them to reporters during his first term.
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Littlejohn was not a rogue actor. He methodically accessed and leaked the private financial records of a sitting president to journalists, and he did it more than once. He pleaded guilty and got five years. Leftist rags used the stolen material to run damaging stories about Trump's finances while he was a private citizen running for reelection, and the IRS, an agency whose core job includes protecting taxpayer confidentiality, did nothing to stop it.
Trump and his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, dropped the $10 billion suit as part of the deal. No payout, but a formal apology.
The DOJ is standing up a $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund open to any American who believes they were politically targeted or unfairly investigated by a prior administration, Biden, Obama, whoever. Blanche announced on Tuesday:
“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this department's intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again.”
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, appearing before reporters, dismissed the slush fund criticism outright.
“I already have the authority to settle any claim that is brought against the United States of America,” he said. “I think that it's way, way, way too early for us to rush to judgment on whether this was a good or a bad idea.”
Democrats disagreed, loudly. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) called Blanche “the president’s consigliere” and argued the whole thing was a self-dealing arrangement since Trump’s own appointees run both sides of it. Others on the Hill warned the fund would become a payout mechanism for Jan. 6 defendants and Trump allies nursing grievances over their prosecutions.
Former Biden IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said that the audit waiver had no precedent in the agency's history.
Former Obama IRS Commissioner John Koskinen put a number on it. A yearslong audit over Trump's tax bill, he said, could have cost the president up to $100 million. Closing that out without a fight is not nothing.
Noted.
The same people outraged today said nothing when a federal contractor was walking out the door with a president's private tax records. They called it a conspiracy theory when Trump campaigned on federal agencies being weaponized against him and his supporters. They treated it as paranoia, a grievance, a talking point for the base. Now there is a criminal conviction, a formal government apology, a $1.776 billion fund, and a permanent order barring the IRS from ever going near those returns again.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
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