In addition to raising eyebrows, the $1,776 billion settlement that President Trump is about to extract from his myrmidons at the Department of Justice in his bloated $10 billion lawsuit against the government for unauthorized disclosures by an outside contractor from 2018-2020 of some of his personal and business tax returns raises a number of troublesome questions.
The payment, with that patriotic-inspired sum, will go into a fund to compensate any perceived victims of “weaponization” by the Biden administration, including the 1,500-plus pardoned January 6th rioters. Ingeniously, the president and his lawyers convinced their accommodating collaborators at the Justice Department, managed by his former lawyer, to allow the money to be distributed by a commission to be appointed by the president, presumably full-fledged MAGA adherents, and subject to removal at his whim.
By doing do, the money can be doled out without the inconvenience of having the determinations of entitlements and amounts made by judges and juries, but by acolytes of the president.
There are probably more machinations in store, like waiver of taxes on any amounts received, closure of sessions of commission proceedings, confidentiality of identity of recipients and amounts they receive, and other beneficial features.
As of this writing, the settlement still must be approved by Federal Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami after she reviews briefs submitted by the parties this week. Prior to disclosure this weekend of the details, she had expressed some skepticism about the propriety of the arrangement and whether the negotiation of it by the president with his own administration poses a conflict of interest, which many knowledge observers feel it is occurring.
To address that concern, she has appointed a panel of the five legal ethics experts to provide guidance to her, although by the time that dust clears, the arrangement probably will be approved in some format, perhaps with some adjustments, and if not, the parties will have to go back to the drawing board and search out a more accommodating jurist. They do not have to look very far because of up the East Coast sits judge Aileen Cannon, one of the president’s favorite jurists, who, it will be recalled, mangled and ultimately dismissed the government’s felony case against him for wrongfully taking classified documents when he left the White House six years ago in the week of the January 6 riot that he inspired.
While the settlement purports to bar any payments directly to the president, who formerly pledged to donate any recovery to unnamed charities, the deal includes sone substantial amenities for him, like an apology and more significantly, dropping of a pending tax audit that could save him and his companies some $100 million, small change compared to the $1.776 billion, but to paraphrase the colorful late Republican Senate Minority leader, gravel-voiced Everett Dirksen, “$100 million here, $100 million there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”
The settlement arrangement also does not restrict payments to the funds being used to finance the president’s favored causes and candidates. They could be funded by donations or contributions from the attorneys for the claimants, usually paid from one-third to 40% of any amount recovered, for presenting their claims, amounting to about $600-$700 million, a tidy sum for appearing before this Kangaroo court.
Likewise, the “weaponization” victims lining up at the trough could afford to kick in some of the hundreds of millions they stand to receive, perhaps a tithe.
Maybe the claimants and their attorneys can contribute to the ballroom, the arch, the reflecting pool on the Capitol mall, more golden statues of the president like the 22-foot high golden one dedicated last week at his Doral golf course in Miami before a group of genuflecting clerics and other supporters, along with other indulgences.
Perhaps even a few statues of the January 6th Shaman.
Marshall H. Tanick is a constitutional law attorney in Naples.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Rioters rejoice at $1,776 billion settlement of lawsuit | Opinion
Reporting by Marshall H. Tanick / Fort Myers News-Press
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