All posts tagged "irs"

DOJ agency claims it has no records of Trump's shady IRS settlement

A Department of Justice division claimed it had no records related to President Donald Trump's IRS settlement, a watchdog reported.

According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the DOJ's Civil Division came up empty-handed when responding to a request for records related to the settlement that led to Trump's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.

The $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund came out of a settlement in the case Trump v. IRS, a $10 billion lawsuit over the leaking of the Trump family and organization's tax returns. CREW filed the request to see DOJ documents related to the settlement that created the fund, but "DOJ's Civil Division claims to have no record of so much as being notified about Trump's case," the watchdog reported.

CREW was expecting some paper trail, given the amount of money involved and the fact that it was the first time a sitting president had sued and settled a case with their own administration.

"Given the extraordinary way this case unfolded, a settlement of this magnitude leaving no trace in the files of the divisions typically responsible for it is yet another striking confirmation of the irregular, collusive process that produced an enormously corrupt result," CREW wrote.

CREW is challenging the lawsuit in court, it noted.

'My God!' Fireworks as Todd Blanche confronted over Trump family IRS immunity order

A Democratic lawmaker blasted Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday and called out the immunity order issued by the Justice Department that granted President Donald Trump, his family and associates immunity from any future IRS investigations.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) pressed Blanche — Trump's former personal lawyer — to answer questions about the decision during the House Appropriations Committee hearing on the Justice Department. Blanche admitted during the Capitol Hill hearing that the Justice Department would not move forward with its "anti-weaponization fund" following outcry from both lawmakers and the public.

And in DeLauro's line of questioning, she expressed frustration towards Blanche, shaking her head and scoffing at his responses after he said the order was "not blanket immunity." Then she read the order directly to him.

"United States releases, waives, acquits and forever discharges each of the plaintiffs from and is hereby forever barred and precluded from prosecuting or pursuing any and all claims, counterclaims, causes of actions, appeals, requests for any reliefs," DeLauro read.

"I mean, this is an order from you, but you're not prepared," she said. "You are prepared to say that the president and his family will be, are barred, are immune. That's a yes."

"No, it was not a yes. I had not answered the question. I can't answer if you want me to," Blanche said.

Blanche argued that the Justice Department and Trump administration would not move forward with the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund." But DeLauro wanted answers — and not just about the fund.

"OK. But you are moving forward with this second order," DeLauro pushed back.

"It's not moving forward. There's a settlement," Blanche said. "There's a settlement that the IRS entered into with President Trump and others, his family and his companies as part of that settlement. As is customary in IRS settlements. There's a separate AG order," Blanche said.

DeLauro was stunned by Blanche's comments and made it known.

"Friends, listen to what is being said here today here," she said. "This is really pretty extraordinary, that we are going to forever barred and precluded from examining or prosecuting the president, his sons and the Trump organization's current tax filings. Simply put, you just gave the president's family a tax immunity to the tune of about $100 million."

"Not true," Blanche said.

"Well, yes, you have, my friend," DeLauro said.

She called out Blanche's conflict of interest.

"The Save America PAC paid you nearly $10 million in 2024 to serve as President Trump's personal defense attorney! My God, do you not find there's any conflict of interest in what you are doing here as the acting attorney general of the US?" DeLauro asked.

Joe Rogan breaks with Trump over 'unprecedented' IRS deal protecting Trump and family

Joe Rogan was stunned after news of President Donald Trump's newly created $1.8 billion slush fund and called the ordeal "crazy," The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday.

The longtime Trump ally spoke about it Monday on his "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast with comedian Tom Segura, discussing the $10 billion lawsuit settlement between Trump and the IRS and how the Department of Justice announced that the fund would compensate allies of the president who claim they were wrongly prosecuted under former President Joe Biden's administration, including Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol rioters.

Rogan took issue with the document signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that forever bars the United States from pursuing any tax claims or other legal actions against the president, his family, his trusts, and his companies.

"That is so crazy," Rogan said. "Imagine like somebody accused you of murder, yeah, and turns out you weren’t guilty of that murder and then you sue them and you go, 'You can never prosecute me for murder again.' And then you just go straight Uday Hussein."

Hussein was the son of Saddam Hussein and an Iraqi politician. He "had a reputation for sadism and cruelty, and died in a gory siege under fire from U.S. forces in 2003," according to The Beast.

Rogan endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential election and has since become a more vocal and "cautious" critic of the president during his second term.

Former IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel told The Beast that the president should be treated just like every other American citizen.

"This is an unprecedented remedy," Werfel said. "People expect the same tax rules and enforcement framework to apply to everybody."

Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the slush fund, known as the taxpayer-funded “anti-weaponization” fund. It's led GOP lawmakers to openly challenge Trump.

New DOJ order 'forever bars' US from tax claims against Trump family

The Department of Justice has issued an order permanently barring the United States from pursuing any tax claims or other legal actions against President Donald Trump, his family, his trusts, and his companies, according to a Justice Department document signed Tuesday by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

The order, issued in connection with the settlement of Trump v. Internal Revenue Service, stated, "The United States RELEASES, WAIVES, ACQUITS, and FOREVER DISCHARGES" the plaintiffs and is "FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims, counterclaims, causes of action, appeals, or requests for any relief" against Trump or related parties.

The settlement agreement had already created what the DOJ calls Trump's "Anti-Weaponization Fund," a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded pot to compensate people who claim they were politically targeted by previous administrations.

The barred claims include anything that "have been or could have been asserted" against the plaintiffs arising from three categories: matters raised or that could have been raised in the case or pending agency claims; "Lawfare and/or Weaponization"; or "any matters currently pending or that could be pending (including tax returns filed before the Effective Date) before Defendants or other agencies or departments."

The order was first flagged by CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane.

During testimony on Tuesday, Blanche defended the $1.776 billion fund and was accused of still acting as Trump's personal attorney.

MeidasTouch wrote in reaction, "Trump's personal attorney is at it again."

'Completely illegal and absurd': Ex-Trump lawyer calls out moves to 'loot the treasury'

A former attorney for President Donald Trump slammed his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and plan to create a $1.7 billion fund.

"It's completely illegal and absurd," attorney Ty Cobb said Saturday on MS NOW. "The case against the IRS is a completely fabricated vehicle for Trump to try to loot the treasury."

Trump has said that he plans to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, which he oversees as chief executive, in favor of a $1.7 billion fund to pay off allies – including Jan. 6 rioters – who say they were attacked and had their tax information disclosed by the Biden administration.

Cobb explained that Trump's lawsuit should be limited by a "two-year statute of limitations."

"The statute involved only allows $1,000 per disclosure," Cobb said. "There's an argument that there may have been, somewhere between one and 10 disclosures" by the Biden administration.

"There's no argument that supports the 10,000 or more disclosures that would be necessary to get him to $10 billion," Cobb continued. "It's really, really absurd."

Trump family could pocket billions from IRS suit: analyst

President Donald Trump will funnel a potential IRS payout into a family shell company, a political analyst has claimed.

Trump and his sons are negotiating with the Internal Revenue Service to settle a $10 billion lawsuit without trial. Trump filed the lawsuit after taking office, claiming an IRS contractor leaked his tax information. The motion for settlement extension was filed with IRS consent, requesting time for parties to engage in discussions and avoid protracted litigation.

Trump acknowledged in January that he is essentially negotiating with himself, stating he could make the settlement "a substantial amount" before directing funds to charities.

Heather Delaney Reese believes that, should Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service be a success, the payout will not be headed to charity.

Reese wrote, "Trump and his lawyers are currently in settlement talks with the Department of Justice over this lawsuit. The same DOJ that he controls. If those talks result in a payout, it would be Trump’s own administration writing Trump and his family a check from the United States Treasury. That would be taxpayer money being spent.

"And if he does donate the winnings to charity, as he suggested on Air Force One, do not hold your breath waiting to find out which one. This is a family with a history of creating entities that look like charities on paper.

"The Trump Foundation was shut down under court supervision after the New York Attorney General found that Trump had repeatedly used its funds for his own personal, business, and political interests.

"He was ordered to pay $2 million in damages. He made 19 admissions of illegal activity. His three adult children were required to undergo mandatory charity law training as part of the settlement. So when he says the money could go to charity, it might not mean what we imagine that to mean."

Reese went on to suggest that the lawsuit could be set to collapse by May after a federal judge asked a pointed question about the point of the suit.

"But on Friday, a federal judge named Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee sitting in Miami, looked at the case and asked a question that cut through what this lawsuit really was about: money," Reese wrote. "She pointed out that Trump is the sitting president who directly oversees both the IRS and the Treasury Department.

"His named adversaries in this lawsuit are agencies whose decisions are subject to his direction. She questioned whether the parties are even 'sufficiently adverse to each other' for the lawsuit to be constitutional under Article III, which requires an actual controversy between genuinely opposing parties."

IRS admits it accidentally handed immigrant tax data to ICE: 'Mistakes are inevitable'

The IRS has improperly disclosed immigrant tax data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Dottie Romo, the tax agency’s chief risk and control officer, confirmed in sworn testimony that the agency had given information to ICE agents and the Department of Homeland Security, The Washington Post reported. Jacob Bogage, Jeff Stein, and Perry Stein, wrote that IRS representatives shared information for thousands of immigrants with ICE officials.

Insiders speaking to The Post say the error had only been recently discovered, but did confirm confidential tax information had been shared with the DHS, even when the department could not provide sufficient details to positively identify a suspect.

Federal law means immigrants can pay taxes with assurances that they would not be targeted by immigration enforcement. This changed when the IRS agreed to share information with the DHS on individuals the Trump administration believed to be in the country illegally.

Federal courts have since blocked the data sharing, though not before the DHS requested 1.2 million individuals' addresses from the IRS. 47,000 data sets had been shared between the IRS and DHS, according to insiders.

While Romo has confirmed there had been a transfer of information between the two departments, she could not confirm when the breach had first been noticed.

By January 23 of this year, Romo says steps were taken to "prevent the disclosure or dissemination, and to ensure appropriate disposal, of any data provided to ICE by IRS based on incomplete or insufficient address information."

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said that under the data-sharing agreement, “the government is finally doing what it should have all along.”

"Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, and identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense.

"With the IRS information specifically, DHS plans to focus on enforcing long-neglected criminal laws that apply to illegal aliens."

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, writing in November last year on the alleged tie between the IRS and DHS, suggested taxpayers would not be pleased with how the agencies had conducted themselves.

She wrote, "This allegedly unauthorized viewing involves personal information that taxpayers provided to the IRS pursuant to a promise that the IRS would prioritize keeping the information confidential.

"A reasonable taxpayer would likely find it highly offensive to discover that the IRS now intends to share that information permissively because it has replaced its promise of confidentiality with a policy of disclosure."

Tom Bowman, policy counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology, added, "Once taxpayer data is opened to immigration enforcement, mistakes are inevitable and the consequences fall on innocent people.

"The disclosure of thousands of confidential records unfortunately shows precisely why strict legal firewalls exist and have — until now — been treated as an important guardrail."

This Trump outrage will sink him with MAGA — and it's not Epstein

One cannot fully appreciate the level of danger President Donald Trump brings to every assumption ever made about American self-governance without acknowledging that whatever else the man may be, he has been a master at reading the room, manipulating the right-wing press, existing less as winner than feral survivor, able to walk the edge, an anti-political-gravity machine.

Now, though, he seems on the edge of losing that never-more-necessary skill.

Trump has failed more in the last six weeks than in any other period in his political life, outside January 2021. Not content to pull back and reevaluate, he may have just made his worst read yet.

No doubt, any Trump implosion will involve a lagging economy and more messy Epstein revelations. But tied into both those realities is Trump's newly announced lawsuit seeking $10 billion from the Internal Revenue Service, for "leaking" his tax documents — the IRS being part of a government he "rules" with glee and considers his piggy bank. Yes, the suit enrages the left — but everything does. More importantly, this will enrage too much of the right, especially if the suit is successful.

MAGA celebrates the man who sleeps with porn stars and owns Mar-a-Lago, who has bragged from day one that he's "really rich." Some supporters will still defend him. Nothing comes more naturally to these folks than falling into the victimhood in which they entrench themselves so comfortably: "Look at what the IRS did to him! They investigated... "

Yeah, they did. Set aside that those investigations were in far better faith than those of Jerome Powell, Hunter Biden, or the auto-pen: the man ended up president again, richer than ever. Now his lawsuit looks like a bank robbery — because that's precisely what it is. Even more dangerous to Trump, it makes him look desperate, more gluttonous than righteous, and will insult many followers.

"We thought that you already had limitless money, and now you say you need a few more billion, so you're giving it to yourself?"

Basically, yeah.

He might once have assured himself that he can navigate the landscape better than anyone, that it's a risk worth taking given the gold, and he'll survive anyway. But he's given himself reason to doubt lately, so much so that the IRS suit looks particularly reckless.

Look at all Trump managed to do since the holidays.

He grabbed Nicolás Maduro in the middle of the night with an operation of almost breathtaking professionalism if dubious motivation — then immediately coughed up the snap by practically declaring himself king of Venezueala and never looking more adolescent in his neediness than when "accepting" the Nobel Peace Prize won by Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

Then he stormed off to Davos, to humiliate himself in pursuit of the white whale that is Greenland, only to fail and get owned by Canadian PM Mark Carney.

Regarding Minneapolis and the depredations of ICE, Trump fumbled and appears to be backing down from the message, to the degree that he's even forced MAGA pols to turn on him, or at least take him less seriously.

And then came Epstein again...

So demanding the government he runs give him $10 billion fits the pattern — as oblivious as it is gratuitous, a net worth between five and ten billion apparently not enough. He wants to double it with daylight robbery? This looks particularly stupid.

Good, although the stupidity is less of a problem than the shameless greed. Trump isn't suing for $10 billion as symbolism. This is about getting a check, nothing more.

Picture it now. We enter summer 2026 with Americans on edge. The cities are hot, tempers are high, everyone nervous because inflation refuses to come down, markets become increasingly uneasy, and real economic fear sets in, even if short of panic. Does Trump really want to have the IRS announce that it "settled" his case for any significant amount?

Put it this way, our system uses lawsuits to remedy damages and punish when things go awry. This lawsuit involves a "victim" whose net worth has done nothing but shoot up since he entered public life. What needs remedying?

But even that matters less than a voter sitting back, knowing Trump "banked" on winning by filing, wondering "Why the f--- does this guy get to give himself a few billion more dollars for the trouble while I just took a second job?"

Such thoughts will not consume all of MAGA, but they will consume enough.

If Trump's Nobel hold-up revealed his immaturity, self-absorption, and shameless simplicity at previously unseen levels, then this move highlights greed and cluelessness so shocking that even the most cynical might say, "Whoa." Trump thought he could wrestle Greenland away from Denmark only to get hung with a giant "L." The pattern could repeat here, only on this one, he'll surely get his check, only to then "lose" far more than money.

One last thing. No question, Trump believes that even though every president endures troublesome leaks, he is the world's biggest victim. So if he really wanted to stick it to the leakers in the IRS, he could actually sue for one dollar and tell the world he wants to make a statement, for either the government or a jury to admit he was wronged. He could do so. But he's Trump, and no principle stands above "the" principle: "Only money matters."

Nice move, Ace. Normally, I would be the one needing to check myself, having failed in predicting your political demise all too many times. But with your recent record, there's reason to believe that you've developed a bit of a blind spot.

Relentless greed does that, and one senses that even MAGA has its limits, if feeling economically left out. In this case, they will.

Jason Miciak is past Associate Editor for Occupy Democrats, an author, and attorney. He can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com and on "X" at @JasonMiciak, and now follow on Blue Sky.

'Very troubling': Trump's new big move could be 'death knell' for left-wing groups

As the Trump administration pushes to weaponize the IRS against the president's political enemies, it could be a "potential death knell" for progressive organizations.

Just as President Donald Trump has used the Department of Justice to seek revenge on his foes, he's also planning a similar move using the IRS, according to a Mother Jones report on Friday from senior editor Michael Mechanic.

And this time, he has promised to seek to revoke the tax-exempt status of liberal organizations.

The Wall Street Journal indicated this week that "sweeping changes" are coming. And Trump is lining up "a target list of progressive donors and groups, the paper reported, including, not surprisingly, billionaire George Soros, that bogeyman of right-wing conservatives, and groups with ties to his Open Society Foundations," with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's adviser Gary Shapley taking the lead.

“This is, without doubt, a very troubling development,” John Koskinen, former IRS commissioner under President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump during the first administration, told Mother Jones. He explains that partisan use of the IRS is illegal.

“Section 7217 of the US Criminal Code prohibits the president or anyone in the White House from suggesting or ordering an IRS audit,” Koskinen said. “Putting administration loyalists in charge of the IRS generally and the criminal division in particular with the expressed aim of auditing individual taxpayers or trying to eliminate the tax exemption of nonprofits the administration does not approve of certainly violates the spirit if not the letter of the Criminal Code.”

The Reagan administration also attempted to do this to Mother Jones in the 1980s, and the public won, Mechanic added.

"Such investigations could be used not only in pursuit of criminal cases, but also as a rationale for yanking a progressive organization’s tax-exempt status, eliminating the ability of its donors to take a tax deduction—a potential death knell for any nonprofit group’s ability to survive and support its mission," Mechanic writes.

Read the full report.

'Exactly what Vance warned against': JD Vance's words come back to bite him

Vice President JD Vance's words are coming back to bite him as "exactly what Vance warned against" in 2023 has resurfaced online as the Trump administration is reportedly seeking to hunt down left-wing groups through the IRS, according to reports Thursday.

Vance, who was an Ohio senator at the time, appeared on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle warning of the “weaponization of the IRS" during the Biden administration and how it was targeting conservatives, The Daily Beast reports. But now, a similar move is reportedly underway by the Trump administration.

“The IRS is basically trying to send a signal that if you are doing effective work on behalf of the conservative movement, you gotta have your head on a swivel, you gotta be looking over your shoulder to make sure the IRS isn’t going to come after you," Vance said in the interview.

Vance called the move “fundamentally an assault on people’s First Amendment rights."

“It’s another example of using the government to target political opponents as opposed to effectively administering the laws of the country," he added.

He also warned that “No Democrat is willing to stand up and say, ‘enough is enough.’”

People online were quick to point out the past statements.

"The comments are being framed online as an example of political hypocrisy, as Vance has not publicly criticized the current administration’s IRS actions, instead, he has boasted of them," according to The Beast.

Vance's own words have come back to haunt him, as the Trump administration is planning massive changes that will allow the IRS to go after left-wing groups, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

The change would allow the administration to stack the IRS's criminal investigation unit with Trump allies "to exert firmer control over the unit and weaken the involvement of IRS lawyers in criminal investigations," the report said, citing anonymous officials.