The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said Friday (local time) that it is finalizing an agreement to launch a so-called “Truth and Justice Commission” along with the establishment of a $1,776,000,000 compensation fund for alleged victims of government “weaponization.”
ABC News, citing sources, said the fund would be created in exchange for President Donald Trump dropping his ongoing lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The proposed deal, which is likely to face legal challenges and has already drawn criticism from Democrats as a “slush fund” for Trump allies, emerged after months of discussions between White House and Justice Department officials. At first, officials sought a legal basis to compensate Trump directly through the settlement.
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Why is Trump starting a fund?
The $1.7 billion fund would be used to compensate Trump allies who believe they were unfairly targeted by former President Joe Biden’s administration. According to the report, the commission overseeing the compensation fund would have broad authority to distribute roughly $1.7 billion in taxpayer money to settle claims by individuals who said they were harmed by the Biden administration’s alleged “weaponization” of the legal system.
Eligible applicants could include nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, as well as entities potentially connected to a sitting U.S. president.
How will the compensation fund work?
The fund would draw money from the Treasury Department’s Court Fund, a permanently available pool of government money used to pay court judgments and court settlements.
Sources told ABC News that President Donald Trump’s proposed “Truth and Justice Commission” would consist of five commissioners, four of whom would be appointed by the attorney general. Trump would also have the power to fire commissioners without having to give a reason. In addition, the commission would not have to disclose how it distributes the nearly $2 billion in funds.
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Why did Trump sue the IRS?
Earlier this January, the US president, along with his two sons and the Trump Organization, sued the IRS and the Treasury Department for unauthorized disclosure of his tax information during his first term, to which a former IRS contractor pleaded guilty in 2023.
In the lawsuit, Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and the Trump Organization accused two government agencies of failing to secure their confidential tax returns and related information from unauthorized access and disclosure.
The lawsuit further alleged that the government caused them “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputation, painted them in a false light, and negatively affected the public standing of President Trump and the other plaintiffs.”
The plaintiffs sought $10 billion in damages, and the suit was filed in Florida.
In 2023, Charles Littlejohn, an IRS contractor, admitted that in 2019 and 2020 he illegally accessed confidential tax records associated with Trump and thousands of wealthy Americans and released them to two media outlets.
Littlejohn was later sentenced to five years in prison. During his 2024 hearing, a federal judge called the leak “an attack on our constitutional democracy.”
In a court filing this week, lawyers expressed major concerns about the lawsuit, arguing that Trump is exercising “extraordinary” control over the defendants in the case. The circumstances, they said, raised concerns that the defendants and their lawyers may be acting at the behest of the president rather than independently.
The proposed settlement and compensation fund is expected to face intense legal and political scrutiny in the coming weeks, particularly over the use of taxpayer money, the commission’s broad powers and questions about the independence of the process.
Key things
- The compensation fund aims to address the government’s alleged “weaponization” against Trump allies.
- The deal drew criticism for the potential use of taxpayer money to benefit political allies.
- Concerns are being raised about the independence of the proposed commission overseeing the fund.
