The Justice Department is standing by an extraordinary measure giving President Trump, his family and his businesses potentially lucrative protection from I.R.S. investigations, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Mr. Blanche\u2019s remarks about the tax protections came during an appearance in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee, in which he told lawmakers that the Trump administration was abandoning a related plan to create a $1.8 billion fund<\/a> to pay restitution to people who claimed they were victims of government \u201cweaponization.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Blanche said the end of the fund would not affect the separate agreement shielding Mr. Trump from audits of tax returns he and his family had already filed. Both proposals had emerged in recent weeks as part of a settlement of Mr. Trump\u2019s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. But now only the measure benefiting the Trumps will survive, Mr. Blanche said.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing has changed with that,\u201d he said, referring to the tax proposal. \u201cWe\u2019re not moving forward with the anti-weaponization fund.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Blanche\u2019s directive left in place a staggering public benefit to a president who has sought to bend the government toward his own financial interests. A host of thorny legal questions also remain. Mr. Trump\u2019s lawsuit against the I.R.S. was revived last week<\/a> by a judge concerned about potential deception in the agreement to withdraw the suit and to release the Trumps from any ongoing audits.<\/p>\n These protections could be immensely valuable to Mr. Trump and his family, who have faced repeated audits from the Internal Revenue Service. Just one investigation by the I.R.S. stemmed in part from how Mr. Trump claimed losses on his Chicago tower could have cost him more than $100 million<\/a>, The New York Times has reported. The Trump Organization had recently entered settlement talks with the I.R.S. to try to resolve the audit, The Times previously reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tax lawyers and former I.R.S. officials have said that the protection for Mr. Trump was unprecedented in its scope and form, particularly since it extends to \u201caffiliates\u201d of the Trumps. Pre-existing I.R.S. procedure has been to audit the president every year, rather than confer on him sweeping protection from scrutiny on tax returns already filed.<\/p>\n Mr. Blanche sought to cast the audit protections as a typical outcome of litigation against the I.R.S. But Mr. Trump\u2019s lawsuit against the agency did not deal with an audit or tax issue, instead focusing on the leak of his tax returns by a former I.R.S. contractor during his first term.<\/p>\n Indeed, when the tax proposal was first floated to the Justice Department last month, lawyers there raised questions about whether giving the Trumps protection against I.R.S. scrutiny would run afoul of a law barring the tax agency from dropping audits at the direction of the president or his aides.<\/p>\n The I.R.S. also sought to contest Mr. Trump\u2019s lawsuit, with lawyers at the agency preparing a 25-page memorandum recommending that the Justice Department move to dismiss the case.<\/p>\n \u201cLike anytime the I.R.S. settles with an individual taxpayer or another company, as part of the settlement, it\u2019s standard, it\u2019s typical to get rid of past ongoing audits,\u201d Mr. Blanche said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a forward-looking document. It\u2019s nothing that gives any sort of immunity in the future to the president or his family or his organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Blanche personally signed the document conferring tax protections for Mr. Trump, his family and businesses. The brief agreement was posted without fanfare on the Justice Department\u2019s website on May 19, one day after the agreement setting up the anti-weaponization fund was released. Some lawyers have questioned whether Mr. Blanche, as the acting attorney general, even has the authority to order the I.R.S., a separate agency, to stop civil tax audits.<\/p>\n Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said at the hearing on Tuesday that the I.R.S. order proved that Mr. Blanche was continuing to act as Mr. Trump\u2019s personal lawyer. \u201cDo you not find there\u2019s any conflict of interest in what you are doing here as the acting attorney general of the United States?\u201d she asked. Mr. Blanche said there was none.<\/p>\n While Senate Republicans had loudly protested the $1.8 billion fund, spurring Mr. Blanche\u2019s retreat on that provision, many have appeared to look the other way at the audit protection, a benefit for the president potentially worth tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t been focused on that to tell the truth,\u201d said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. \u201cI think the same rules should apply to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Senate Democrats have said they plan to try to force votes on both the $1.8 billion fund and the audit provision. Republicans are taking up a bill funding immigration enforcement efforts under a fast-track process that allows Democrats to introduce amendments.<\/p>\n At least one Senate Republican, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, has been critical of the audit immunity.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can you not at least have them be subject to the same thing that I\u2019m subjected to, and every one of you?\u201d he said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Justice Department is standing by an extraordinary measure giving President Trump, his family and his businesses potentially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[93678,24442,1452,29461,1082,9,11,10,24443,1069,4464,90632,1876],"class_list":["post-253060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-anti-weaponization-fund-trump-v-irs","tag-blanche","tag-donald-j","tag-internal-revenue-service","tag-justice-department","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-todd-attorney","tag-trump","tag-trump-organization","tag-trump-tax-returns","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253060","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=253060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}