“This Settlement of Donald Trump’s Lawsuit Does Not in Any Way Constitute a Payout to Donald Trump!” – A Statement from Donald Trump’s Department of Justice
“The Trump administration announced Monday the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate [the president’s] allies…The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” of $1.776 billion is part of a settlement that resolves President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. It will allow people who believe they were targeted for prosecution for political purposes, including by the Biden administration Justice Department, to apply for payouts…” – Hussein, Fatima, Tucker, Eric, and Durkin, Alanna; May 18th, 2026, “Justice Department announces nearly $1.8B fund to compensate Trump allies in a deal to drop I.R.S. suit,” Associated Press
To the Unwilling Sponsors of This Transparent Slush Fund:
The Department of Justice has settled a long-standing lawsuit filed by President Trump against the Internal Revenue Service. The TL;DR is that $1.776 billion dollars (get it?) will be placed into a fund that President Trump’s political allies can access if they feel they’ve been unfairly persecuted by the prior presidential administration. They’ll even get an apology!
The fact that both the I.R.S. and the Department of Justice answer to President Trump has raised questions as to whether these actions constitute a handout to the president that he is essentially giving to himself, and his sycophantic inner circle using public funds provided by you, the American people, in the form of your taxes. We’d like to set the record straight on this here and now.
No. Not in the slightest.
The sitting president is not enriching himself or his enablers, or setting up a readily accessible trust for his partisan cronies, and the perpetrators of the January 6th Insurrection, many of whom identify as white nationalists with a history of criminal conduct.
His actions do not in any way indicate brazen disdain for the rule of law, or basic decency. He is not displaying utter disregard for the optics of this, or its impact on his perception by the American public.
The Department of Justice is not bending the knee to Trump as he continues to pursue his mad ambitions of despotism, driven by an insatiable ego, and a seizure of power and prestige for its own sake.
This decision does indicate a clear erosion of the system of checks and balances. The United States is not on a slippery slope towards autocracy, or kleptocracy. Though one could argue that this transaction is textbook evidence of both.
None of us have lowered our dignity, or our standards of conduct to placate the president and soothe his frequent outbursts of temper, driven by a petty, childish sense of entitlement. We have not fluffed his pillows, laid down on the street to keep him from stepping in mud puddles as he exits the presidential limousine, or pre-warmed the seats of the many White House toilets for him by sitting on them like nesting fowl.
This move does not constitute “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history,” as Donald Sherman, the president of Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility put it. It also does not represent an act of hypocrisy by a president who routinely calls out actions he perceives as “weaponization” while engaging in them himself. One need not be a lawyer or a legal scholar to see that.
But who are you to judge? A historically slim majority of you literally asked for this by voting President Trump back into office less than two years ago. You did this despite the high probability of him engaging in this very behavior in the interest of obtaining cheap eggs! Don’t you have demanding, underpaying jobs to get to that will probably be replaced by A.I. before too long anyway?
To that point, the less said about the President’s dealings in that industry, the better. Let’s exercise the same discretion when it comes to the sweetheart deal he’s arranging for the repainting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Thank you for your attention. Please resume burying your heads in the sand and forking over more of your personal data to the TikTok, YouTube, and social media algorithms. Times are hard, and you deserve the indoctrination, er-diversion!
Sincerely,
The Department of Justice