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Notes -
Is presidential corruption still culture war?
You may or may not remember that back in January of this year President Trump, in his personal capacity, sued the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion in damages related to leaks of his tax returns by a contractor back in 2018-2020. I don't want to dig into the merits of the case as such, except I'll note the legal discussion I've read seems to have a consensus that the case is very weak. It is also very unusual for a sitting President to be suing the government he is in charge of. There are obvious conflicts of interest involved. So much so the judge in that case issued an order for the parties to explain how they are actually adverse to each other, how they disagree, so that the cases and controversies requirement of the constitution is satisfied.
As of today, it seems we may never find out how good the claims are or aren't, how adverse the parties are or aren't. Trump filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss his lawsuit, pursuant to the establishment of a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund". It's not even clear to me the fund is going to be administered by the United States government, as paragraph C provides:
Is this going to be the new normal? If you're President and Congress won't give you the money you want to pay your friends and allies you can get however much you want with this one weird trick!
ETA:
ABC reports that the fund will be overseen by a five-member commission appointed by the Attorney General, but the members will all be removal at-will by the President.
The incredible part is that the lawsuit isn't even just about something the federal government did, but something the federal government did under Trump. Regardless of your thoughts about the Biden or Obama admins, allowing this logic is insane and incentivizes every future president to "harm" themselves or allies (and they of course don't even have to actually show any real harm cause it's all done through settlements!), sue themselves, and then distribute taxpayer money among themselves, their friends and other allies. It blatantly turns the government, and the American taxpayer, into a personal piggy bank.
This was already standard practice under Obama and Biden. https://www.cato.org/blog/justice-department-revives-slush-fund-settlements
Both settlements mentioned in that article were between adverse parties. The innovation in this case is that Trump is funding a slush fund settlement by suing himself.
I agree with @JTarrou that the fundamental tactic is a very old left-wing one. Trump's version is more brazen in its corruption in two ways:
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