{"id":237511,"date":"2026-05-20T00:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T00:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237511\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T00:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T00:46:08","slug":"live-updates-trumps-deal-to-settle-lawsuit-blocks-i-r-s-claims-against-president-and-his-family-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237511\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Updates: Trump’s Deal to Settle Lawsuit Blocks I.R.S. Claims Against President and His Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, on Tuesday defended a new $1.8 billion program to pay people who claim mistreatment by the federal government, as he faced blowback to an initiative Democrats called a slush fund for allies of President Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Mr. Blanche\u2019s comments came during a Senate appropriations hearing, where he promised transparency even as he declined to disclose whether the money would go to pro-Trump rioters convicted of assaulting police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no limitation on the claims,\u201d he said, insisting that the fund would review claims from an array of people, not just Republicans, and not just over perceived instances of mistreatment by the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

Asked if Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign donors could also seek taxpayer compensation, Mr. Blanche said they could. He also suggested that President Joseph R. Biden Jr.\u2019s son Hunter Biden, who was prosecuted and convicted by the Biden administration, could also apply.<\/p>\n

Under an agreement announced on Monday, the president withdrew a $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. after a leak of his taxpayer return information, as well as two claims totaling $230 million for past F.B.I. investigations of Mr. Trump and his associates. In exchange, the Trump administration established a $1.776 billion fund to compensate those it says were victims of \u201cweaponization\u201d under Democratic administrations.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Justice Department quietly disclosed an addendum to the terms of the deal, which bars the I.R.S. from pursuing tax audits<\/a> of or claims against Mr. Trump, his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization.<\/p>\n

At one point in the hearing on Tuesday, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, pointed out that Mr. Blanche had gone from serving as Mr. Trump\u2019s personal defense lawyer to picking a handful of people to oversee a fund handing out more than a billion dollars, presumably to the president\u2019s allies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the acting attorney general, OK?\u201d Mr. Blanche said angrily. \u201cThe fact that I used to be President Trump\u2019s lawyer is just a fact. But I am the acting attorney general, so don\u2019t say the president\u2019s former personal lawyer will do something. The acting attorney general will do something,\u201d he said, jabbing the witness table for emphasis.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president\u2019s personal attorney, and that\u2019s the whole problem,\u201d Mr. Van Hollen replied.<\/p>\n

Democrats at the hearing emphasized that the deal struck between the Trump administration and lawyers for the president had no judicial or independent oversight, suggesting that the loosely defined rules for who receives payment could change at any time.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump and his allies have long argued that his indictments were politically motivated abuses of the criminal justice system meant to cripple or kill his political career. Administration officials said that Mr. Trump, his sons and his company would not receive compensation from the new fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs a dollar of this money going to Donald Trump personally? No,\u201d Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Tuesday. \u201cIs a dollar of this money going to Donald Trump\u2019s family? No.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the hearing, Mr. Blanche also made clear that the fund was created in response to what Mr. Trump and his allies have argued was unjust overreach by Mr. Biden\u2019s attorney general, Merrick B. Garland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a flaw in the legal system because this legal system was not set up to compensate for what the Democrats and what Biden and what Garland did for four years,\u201d Mr. Blanche said, repeatedly denying the initiative was a slush fund.<\/p>\n

Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, interjected that the fund amounted to \u201ccorruption that has never been more blatant or more widespread.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Republican, Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, asserted that the Justice Department had violated his rights in 2023 when Jack Smith, the special counsel, seized the phone records of some G.O.P. lawmakers as part of the investigation into Mr. Trump\u2019s efforts to undo the 2020 election results.<\/p>\n

Mr. Smith and other former Justice Department officials have said the review of those records was appropriate and necessary to investigate Mr. Trump. But Mr. Blanche called those actions \u201cin some ways the worst form of abuse by the Department of Justice,\u201d seemingly suggesting that lawmakers could receive payments from the new fund.<\/p>\n

Last year, Congress passed legislation that would have paid some lawmakers millions of dollars for having their phone records taken as part of that investigation. Criticism of the self-dealing led lawmakers to rescind that language.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department program appears to offer a new avenue for the lawmakers to receive compensation for having their phone records taken.<\/p>\n

At the hearing, Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, suggested his appropriations committee had little to say about the fund, because the panel \u201chas no jurisdiction over this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator John Thune, the majority leader, during his weekly news conference on Tuesday.Credit…Kenny Holston\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Senator John Thune, the Republican majority leader, struck a more cautious note<\/a> when he was asked by reporters about the fund.<\/p>\n

He said he expected it would face opposition and undergo a \u201cfull vetting\u201d by lawmakers during the appropriations process. \u201cMy assumption is that, based on some of the blowback that\u2019s come since this was announced, that there would be a significant amount of attention paid to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, compared Mr. Blanche to a mafia boss\u2019s right hand man.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole hearing is exposing something which is to me very frightening,\u201d Mr. Reed said. \u201cYou\u2019re a very gifted lawyer, but from my perspective, you have very little faith to the Constitution and the people of America, and you\u2019re the president\u2019s consigliere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Blanche pushed back. \u201cYour perspective is completely wrong, senator, respectfully,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

Mr. Reed paused. \u201cWell, I think the facts will prove me right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Megan Mineiro and Tyler Pager contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, on Tuesday defended a new $1.8 billion program to pay people who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[24442,98,100,99,1452,9204,14670,9,24,63,24443,1069,1876],"class_list":["post-237511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-blanche","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-donald-j","tag-immigration-and-emigration","tag-iran","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-todd-attorney","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}