Broad Waivers and Political Implications

This is the Guardian . This week, Donald Trump's Justice Department launched a brand new anti- This is about compensating Americans for the lawfare that we saw under the last administration. Donald Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection, and now he wants to pay the insurrectionists who went to work for him. But is this anything more than a glorified slush fund for the president's friends? It is beyond corruption. It's dangerous. I'm Jonathan Friedland, columnist at The Guardian, and this is Politics Weekly America. And I'm delighted to say that I am joined by Christy Greenberg, a former prosecutor in New York, now a legal analyst for MS Now, also host of her own show on YouTube , Courts ide. Uh Christy, it's very good to have you with us for the first time. I want to go back to the origin story of this fund, right back to where it all started , in January, Donald Trump, who is head of the US government, sued parts of the US government the Treasury Department and the IRS the Internal Revenue Service, the organization that collects people's taxes, Americans. What did he sue them for? So it's Donald Trump, his sons, and the family businesses sued the IRS for $10 billion dollars for failing essentially to properly oversee a contractor who had leaked tax returns of the president and family members. Uh the idea was that there was a violation of his rights to the confidentiality and privacy of his tax returns. There are a number of interesting parts of that lawsuit. The first being that there is a two-year statute of limitations to actually file a lawsuit like that. And that begins to run when uh you learn essentially that the IRS has disclosed your tax information without authorization. And Donald Trump, based on comments his lawyer had made in court, knew about this breach back in October of 2023, meaning that two-year statute of limitations had already passed. So this is pretty cut and dry. You a judge wouldn't even need to get to the merits. This case, this lawsuit would get tossed. Prior to him, U.S. presidents generally voluntarily released their tax returns. So uh the idea that he was somehow harmed to the tune of ten billion dollars really is laughable. Yeah, he he was claiming this was all part of what was a political hit job as he would describe it by the New York Times, which did uh publish uh his uh tax returns it revealed that he'd only paid seven hundred and fifty dollars in federal income taxes in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen. A lot of people sort of do a double take when they see that figure, meaning it must mean seven hundred and fifty thousand or seven hundred and fifty million even. No, seven hundred and fifty dollars is all he paid. You've mentioned some of the obvious um legal objections, but the federal judge looking at the case raised in a way a very obvious objection that I was slightly nodding to uh when I described him as head of the federal government. Uh what was that basic objection? The court raised concerns because Donald Trump suing the IRS and the Department of Treasury, he controls both those defendants as well as the DOJ lawyers. Trump, I would say, even in his public comments, really all but conceded that there was not a dispute. He described the cases tossed it as you said earlier. He wanted a settlement between hims the left hand and the right hand. And that conclusion has turned out to be an apology for the three Trump individuals named, but no personal financial settlement. Um, you know, zero dollars to them personally. Instead, they have agreed to drop the case in exchange for the creation of this new fund. So Christy, just to just spell out for us what this new anti weaponization fund, why it's called that and what it is. Yeah, so essentially there is this anti-weaponization fund uh there is you know not as much information or transparency about it as you would like, but essentially in order to be eligible, someone essentially just has to come forward and say, I have a claim that I have been harmed from lawfare or weaponization. Those terms are not defined in the agreement, but I have a claim that I've been harmed. It does not have to be a successful claim. You just have to say that you have a legal claim and therefore you would be eligible to uh obtain money from this fund. Is a dollar of this money going to Donald Trump personally? No. Is a dollar of this money going to Donald Trump's family? No. The people that would get the money are people, some of whom have been prosecuted completely disproportionate to any crime they've ever committed. As to exactly, you know, how that fund works, um, you know, that will be determined by a commission of five individuals, all of them being uh being appointed by the attorney General of the United States , one of those five, in consultation with a member of Congress. And they essentially will come up with their own procedures to process these claims and to determine whether or not somebody is in fact eligible for for monetary relief. Because the sum of money set aside for this so called anti weaponization fund is the arresting number of one point seven seven six billion. In other words, seventeen seventy six is in there in this the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary year of America's founding. How do you think they came up with this such a precise number for the amount of damages or uh compensation that they are happily uh ready to pay out. Well the one interesting piece of that is that the uh settle agreement settlement agreement actually says this number is not based on uh what we believe any harm to Donald Trump is. Remember, he had said he was harmed to the tune of ten billion dollars. They came up with this one point eight billion dollars as their estimate of the claims that they that they may receive, which kind of taking a step back, well, if nobody has submitted a claim, how would you be able to estimate what you think uh what you think the claims may look like. And, you know, that really raises some questions here. There have been a lot of rumors about about this potential fund coming into effect. Or was it something that, you know, 1776 because of the anniversary, uh 250th anniversary, as you say. It, you know, was it just picked because uh because of that number? Who knows? But but there is no no clear answer. It plays to the idea that it's uh somehow an arbitrary number plucked from the air that just has this patriotic rapp ing that patriots are to be compensated to the tune of a number with 17 76 in it. Immediately, Democrats have been calling this fund uh, in their words, corruption on stero ids. After the break, we get into exactly why they're saying that. We'll be right back . I'm back with Christy Greenberg. Now the Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, when she was asked about this new anti weaponization fund, said and I quote uh Donald Trump is stealing your money, she's addressing the American people here. His Department of Justice just created a one point eight billion dollar slush fund to give your taxpayer dollars to his political buddies. I mean strong language from Elizabeth Warren there, but is she right? Look, I I believe she is. I I mean Trump is making sure nothing prevents his private militia and allies, the people who tried to steal the 202 pres0idential election from continuing to be his good soldiers. First, he pardoned the January 6th rioters, and now he's essentially paying them. They don't need to fear being criminally prosecuted for their actions. And now to the contrary, they should expect to be rewarded. The message is clear that if you engage in an attack on the capital, uh you you're not going to face any legal or financial consequences for that violence. And it really, you know, begs the question of not just the past conduct, but the future. Um militias like the Proud Boys in the United States, they they use money from uh they can use money from this fund essentially to arm and equip themselves, potentially. We're not trying to give money to anybody who attacked a police officer. We're trying to give money, not give money, we're trying to compensate people where the book was thrown at them, they were mistreated by the legal system. Sometimes, you know, we are we do have John in this in this country innocent until proven guilty. We do have people who were accused of attacking law enforcement officers. That doesn't that that that that that doesn't that doesn't mean that we're gonna completely ignore some of the claims Under the terms of the settlement agreement, who gets the money is a secret. No one is to know. There's a confidential r the commission mak es these decisions. There is then a confidential report generated quarterly on a quarterly basis to the Attorney General. Every scintilla of data collected will be released. But of course, I mean of course there's there's the there's re accountability that the commission has, a quarterly report that has to come to the Attorney General, which will will certainly be public. There's a process that that you all will get information, and there's a FOIA process. So I very much anticipate that the claims that are awarded, the the basis and the amount will will for sure be made public. So I would expect them to be redacting the names of the individuals who are getting this money and the amounts that they're getting them in. So we'll never really know uh what is happening and if in fact the United States government is funding, arming and equipping these essentially paramilitaries uh in the United States. It is it is beyond corruption. I think w I think the way that I would frame it is it's dangero Yeah, this is this notion that uh anyone who takes any kind of potentially illegal action uh on behalf of MAGA or Trump won't just know that they'll get a presidential pardon. They may even be paid for their trouble in effect from this fund. It's called the anti weaponization fund, we should spell out because the Trump uh administration's claim is that the Department of Justice was weaponized under Joe Biden and therefore if you were a victim if you can say you were a victim of the weaponization of the criminal justice system under Joe Biden, well then you're eligible for money from this fund. That's how I understand the the the term uh as they're using it. Um one person uh one specific potential beneficiary of this fund was uh named by the Vice President J. D. Vance who suggested uh that T ina Peters might be able to claim compensation under this fund. Now, that name will be new, I think, to a lot of our listeners and viewers. Who is Tina Peters? And why does the Trump administration believe that she would qualify as a victim of the weaponization of the justice system under Donald Trump's predecessor? So Tina Peters was an individual in the state of Colorado who was not only alleged but actually found guilty and sentenced, I believe her sentence was to nine years, you know, essentially engaging in fraudulent behavior with respect to the electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election. Recently, the governor of Colorado commuted her sentence. She was not pardoned, the conviction wasn't wiped away, but he commuted her sentence, so she did not serve out her her for full term. Where is the weaponization exactly? Um they just they don't like the outcome and then they say, well, this means that there was there was weaponization, there was lawfare. Uh and and it's just those are really empty words at this point from this administration. If they had a legitimate claim , if you if you were targeted for an investigation or prosecution vindictively, the United States legal system has ways to deal with those people, but that is not what is happening here. The people who are deciding what the weapon ization is are you know people who are blatantly partisan and it's just which which side of the aisle you're on that that i seems to be the only basis for the determination. You know, i I I'd love them to prove me wrong and if we see James Comey or Letitia James or um John Brennan, I and any of the you know any of Trump's political enemies, if any of them ends up getting a payout, I'm happy to come back and eat my words. But I don't Because of course you're naming people who were the themselves on the receiving end of the attentions of the justice department. They could say they were victims of weaponization just by a different party. And just your point about people's uh neutrality in all this, the Attorney General, we should mention, is a is previously the personal defense lawyer of the president, Todd Todd Blanche. Now, the money for this fund comes out of tax payers' dollars, as Elizabeth Warren, the the Democratic Senator was saying. Therefore, can we conceive of this situation where Capitol Hill police officers who were injured uh on january the sixth, twenty twenty one, in holding back that uh mob um uh uh as it tried to storm the capital then, uh that they could end up paying out of their own taxes uh funds to the very people who menaced them, even assaulted uh and abused them, but who this commission, which is going to be in effect handpicked by the president anyway Aaron Powell Absolut. I mean the money, as you said, is coming from U.S. taxpayers. Two officers, uh two Capitol uh police in uh DC have filed a lawsuit essentially saying just that that they they believe this fund is uh unlawful and that their taxpayer money should not be used to uh to pay out the very people who who hurt them and who continue to pose a threat to them. One of the things I found interesting in their lawsuit was seeing that they say to this day they continu e to uh receive death threats and you know have serious security concerns regarding the individuals who were engaged in that attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. So uh so it is an interesting lawsuit. I I think uh you know whether or not it succeeds it may be difficult for them to prevail because in the United States it is difficult for people to show standing, but somebody should be able to have standing to challenge something that that everybody can see is clearly unlawful. Well on that, about exactly that question of who could possibly stop this. Some Republicans on Capitol have expressed disquiet Susan Collins of Maine, who's a sort of perennial uh uh murmuring critic o of the president alwaysys sa she's troubled but doesn't often do much about it. She said she doubts whether uh the Todd Blanche, the former personal lawyer of the president, now Attorney General, uh can really be j seen as an impartial Don Bacon of Nebraska says it appears like conflict of interest. Uh the White House should bring in an independent arbitrator to uh protect itself from these accusations of bias. The fund is gonna run, uh people can apply for it until December 2028, which just so happens to be the month before this the this second Trump presidency will end. So it does again add to that sense this is very particularly there to protect Trump's allies and buddies. Do you see any source of opposition to this that could actually stop it? Whether that's the courts, Congress, Republicans, uh uh anyone else, could anyone stop this? Congress could stop it. In in two ways. One, if Congress decided to sue uh the Department of Justice to stop it, whether or not that would actually happen uh certainly as as as it stands now, I I am doubtful. They would need to uh to get some some friends across that Democrats would need to get some Republicans on their side to be able to do that. I think the other piece would be Congress passing legislation to essentially block the fund, to block this from happening. They could do that too. But again, given given the current state of our Congress, I I think those are unlikely. Now, after the midterms, you know, maybe maybe that changes. But by the midterms, the money could be gone. We don't know how quickly this is all going to happen. If the money is spent and the money is is is handed out, then even if it's challenged successfully later, if the money is gone, uh you know Now on its face this looks like a deal that is certainly will benefit Donald Trump's friends and allies, but not on its face Donald Trump himself and his sons until you look at the small print. Because uh day after the initial announcement of this, the Department of Justice sort of quietly slipped out a statement saying uh that this there's more to this statement. In indeed there is something very directly beneficial to Trump and his family. Can you tell us about that part of this arrangement? There is essentially uh a waiver from the United States uh to not bring any claims against Trump, against his family. The the language is very broad, against related and affiliated individuals and entities. Um really it said for anything that's pending, anything that's that's currently going on, but then also anything that could happen. And it could be not just the defendants in the case, which was again the IRS and the Department of the Treasury. The language here is we're waiving claims from any agency, any department. So it's really uh really broad for anything up until the date of that settlement, anything he did before, anything his family did before , anything these entities did before that any federal agency in the United States could look at , they won't have the ability to do that. I can't imagine that any future Department of Justice would honor this agreement, would deem it binding. Now the word that people have been using a lot this week, we've used it ourselves uh earlier on is uh corruption. Many Democrats and others have said that the um uh this is an act of corruption by the uh administration and that this has been a pattern really from the the day that Donald Trump and the others returned to office. Of course, everyone involved would absolutely deny that charge and say that they are uh what they're doing is not corrupt. But do you think that the American public itself will see the cre ation of this fund um and the the the everything that you've just told us about it as crossing some kind of line will this and I find myself asking this question often of guests on the podcast really have uh affordability uh concerns have been at the forefront uh during Trump's entire second term and rising gas prices, rising prices for, you know, when when you go to the supermarket. And so when Americans are dealing with that, and then I mean uh everyone, the world saw what happened on January 6th, 2021. And so uh you know, seeing that, seeing people who have assaulted police officers uh know that they will be able to uh make a claim and and more than likely a successful claim because uh one thing that I I found very notable is that when Todd Blanche was asked point blank, well well will you bar anyone who has assaulted a police officer from being able to access this mone y, that should have been a very simple answer. The answer should have been absolutely. Of course they won't be able to get money. It's not limited to um to Republicans. It's not limited to Jack Smith. There's no limitation on the on the claims. And he didn't say that. He didn't rule it out. What he said was, well, that'll be a decision for the commission. Um he just punted it. I do think w that's where we really need Congress to step up and actually provide some oversight here and get information on who is going to be getting the money from these funds. And I do think that if that information comes out and the American people see that it is Trump's allies, that it is it are people who have a violent past and have done horrific things uh in their past, then then hopefully that will change public sentiment. And people will say that's not where we want one point eight billion dollars of our taxpayer money. That's not how we want it spent. Question, something completely different. It was as often an election week in the United States this week and Donald Trump scored a big win in a few places, but one in particular a lot of attention on a primary house race in Kentucky, Thomas Massey, uh incumbent congressman and a critic of Donald Trump, uh one of the that's an endangered species, one of very few uh on the Republican side lost his primary uh contest to a candidate endorsed by the president. So Thomas Massey will not go forward as the Republican uh candidate in that uh House election in November instead, a MAGA loyalist will be there. And similar dynamics were at play, MAG MAGA loyalists uh winning in primaries in Georgia and elsewhere. Uh our own David Smith, bureau chief of the Guardian in Washington, said that Republicans might be wary of overreading this as proof that Donald Trump still calls the shots, but a lot of people have taken this to mean it's still very much his party. Now I know law is your beat, but uh as somebody who observes these things, what's your reading of of of what we've seen this week? Well what I find so interesting about Thomas Massey is I mean, his politics are very conservative. Really, the the issue that was the wedge between Donald Trump and Thomas Massey was the release of the Epstein files. And that is an issue that generally speaking, you know, based on based on polling and and based on even just hearing conservatives speak, was very much an issue that came from a lot of conservatives, that that they wanted the release of the Epstein files. So the fact that that is the single issue, there there was one real issue where there was stark disagreement, and that that really changed things for Thomas Messey. Again, I understand he's he's criticized Donald Trump on other issues, but that seems to be, you know, the the biggest one. Um it to me is just extraordinary. And it it does really show I I think that the Republican Party. If you criticize Donald Trump, do so at your own peril because he will find someone to challenge you in a primary. How much to extrapolate from that going forward? You know, that that worked in a primary, but what does that mean for a general election? Uh just because that is where the Republican base is and that they will follow whatever Donald Trump does, I don't know that that is necessarily going to hold for a general election where Donald Trump's approval rat ings are, you know, quite dismal. So we shall see. Christy Greenberg, thank you so much for joining me on Politics Weekly America. Thank you for having me. And that is all from me this week. If you haven't already, do make sure to check out the Guardians new video podcast out of our New York office. Search for Stateside with Kai and Carter wherever you listen to your podcasts and also on YouTube. But for now, it's goodbye. The producers this week were Nada Smilianich and Danielle Stevens. The executive producer is MAS Ebtahaj. I'm Jonathan Friedland. Thanks as always for listening.