Whichever political ideology you belong to, the current President, Donald A. Trump, literally made it “okay” to be a criminal for him. While there has been push-back from the courts and members of his own political party, which could lead to the slush fund’s abandonment, it’s a slap in the face for all law-abiding citizens. It’s yet again an attempt by Trump and his cronies to legitimize his followers’ illegal conduct that benefits a cruel and oppressive government.
On May 18, 2026, Trump's personal lawyers and Trump-loyal lawyers inside the Justice Department settled a lawsuit filed by the Trump family against the IRS by creating a $1.8 billion slush fund, and hoping the patriotic label would distract from who was receiving the money, calling it the “1776 Fund.”
J.D. Vance tried to make sense of it all for the American people during a contemporaneous press conference. Vance didn’t deny that the slush fund was understood to compensate so-called “supporters of President Trump” who attacked our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, but added “anyone else who wants to apply for it,” could do so, as if that mattered.
Vance tried to soften the blow of the bad news for American taxpayers by characterizing the subsequent prosecutions of “J6ers” as they are known as “lawfare by the Biden Administration” against “people of different viewpoints” and not “people who broke the law.” However, Vance admitted to reporters, as he must, that the payouts would be to people who did in fact commit crimes.
Despite this, Vance characterized the payouts as “compensation” to these adjudicated criminals, who were convicted of their crimes or pled guilty to them, as they were “disproportionately punished” for the crimes they committed. Apparently, receiving a Presidential pardon for committing serious crimes against America is not enough.
They were, after all, criminals “mistreated by the justice system,” exclaimed Vance, unlike every other common, poor, and uneducated criminal, convicted and sentenced to federal prison for decades. And for the Capitol police injured or killed because of their actions, “bupkis” is the word for what they get. And the icing on the cake of the scam perpetrated on Americans was another agreement, which surfaced a promise not to prosecute Trump or any of his associates for tax fraud.
Fortunately, for now, federal court judges intervened. One judge temporarily blocked the slush fund after several lawsuits were filed. Another federal court judge questioned the legitimacy of Trump’s tax case settlement since he was represented by both sides, individually and as President, and questioned whether the settlement was fraudulent in the first place. The court went as so far as to question whether the court itself was “the victim of fraud.”
While the Trump-run Justice Department said it would obey the federal courts, it found, as we expected it would, the courts’ actions objectionable.
If you were waiting for a thoughtful conservative analysis, rather than relying on my description of the deceit that occurred, it came from outgoing Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, after a closed-door two-hour meeting with Acting Attorney General and former personal attorney for Trump. McConnell stated, “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong. Take your pick.”
One could add the whole thing --- slush fund and tax reprieves --- are illegal under the Fourteenth Amendment’s admonishment that the government “shall [not] assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States,” but that’s too technical it seems.
To sum it up and put a bow on it, outgoing North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis held nothing back, “I think it’s stupid on stilts. It will invariably put us in a position . . . [to] compensate someone who assaulted a police officer, admitted their guilt, got convicted, got pardoned, and now we’re going to pay them for that? That’s absurd. When you take money from me to give to a purpose that I vehemently disagree with, that’s tyranny.” Well said, Tom. Well said.
James “Jim” Saranteas is an attorney, contributor to the American Constitution Society Expert Forum Blog, and a Volunteer State Lead for Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and an Activist.
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