We just paid Trump $1.8 billion to accept a get-out-of-jail-free card

[jmowreader]

We are all painfully aware that the IRS just created a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" because Trump had a sad that the FBI dismantled the Trump Presidential Library in 2022 by entering Mar-a-Lago and hauling off the truckload of classified information he had stored in a publicly-accessible bathroom.

This is worse: The Acting Attorney General issued a document that I'll reproduce the most important of the three paragraphs:

The United States RELEASES, WAIVES, ACQUITS, and FOREVER DISCHARGES each of the Plaintiffs from, and is hereby FOREVER BARRED AND PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuint, any and all claims, counterclaims, causes of action, appeals, or requests for any relief, including injunctive relief, monetary relief, damages, examinations or similar or related reviews, appeals, debt relief, costs, attorney's fees, expenses, and/or interest, whether presently known or unknown, that - as of the Effective Date of the Settlement Agreement - have been or could have been asserted by Defendants against any of the Plaintiffs or related or affiliated individuals (including, without limitation, family or others filing jointly), or parties including trusts, parent, sister or related companies, affiliates, and subsidiaries, by reason of, with respect to, in connection with, or which arise out of (1) any matters that were raised or could have been raised in the Case or the Pending Agency Claims; (2) Lawfare and/or Weaponization; or (3) any matters currently pending or that could be pending (including tax returns filed before the Effective Date) before Defendants or other agencies or departments.

In other words, not only does he get damned near $2 billion of your money, he can no longer be held to account for his creative accounting practices.

[Kid Berwyn]

1. The Art of the Steal

They don't call him "Don the Con" for nuthin'.

ETA:

He sued himself.
He asked for more than anyone could imagine.
He settled for a fraction.

Really paid himself with someone else's money.
Free money.

Worked at Deutsche Bank.
Now he does it as pee-rental dunce of the United States.

And those optics make it seem reasonable to a number of idiots.

[Sogo]

2. There is going to be major pushback on this "settlement."

This settlement was not filed in court nor presided over by a judge. It's likely that it doesn't hold water legally. When the judge dismissed the case from which this settlement was derived, she said:

"Defendants—federal agencies represented by the Department of Justice, which has an independent obligation to uphold the 'public's strong interest in knowing about the conduct of its Government and expenditure of its resources' and the 'fair administration of justice,' — neither submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed," she wrote in her dismissal.

>snip>

"There is a glaring conflict of interest with Trump being on both sides of the claim," said Whelan, a former lawyer at the Justice Department who once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. "It is outrageous that he and those answering to him would be deciding how the government responds to these extravagant claims."


https://www.vpm.org/npr-news/npr-news/2026-05-18/judge-dismisses-trumps-irs-lawsuit-paving-the-way-for-a-settlement

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. For this thread

[Irish_Dem]

4. The most successful mob boss and crime family in US history.

Gotta give the son of a bitch credit.