Congress must immediately legislate to fully bar implementation of Trump’s IRS settlement, according to a letter CREW and 17 groups, including Common Cause, Project On Government Oversight, National Women’s Law Center Action Fund and Greenpeace USA sent to congressional leadership. Given the Trump administration’s confusing and inconsistent positions on whether the settlement’s slush fund has been completely abandoned, it’s vital that Congress take action, especially in the face of broad bipartisan outrage.

On June 1, the Trump administration stated that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would abide by the court’s ruling temporarily enjoining them from taking further action on the fund. On June 2, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified before Congress that the administration is “not moving forward with the fund” created under the settlement though he refused to put it in writing. The following day, on June 3, President Trump denied having “dropped” the slush fund, saying only that “A court ruled against it…And I think [people] should be reimbursed for a crooked government.” That same day, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward publicly affirmed that the DOJ would work to recreate the slush fund through the Federal Tort Claims Act, before backtracking his statement later. In light of the administration’s changing statements and hesitation to fully and permanently abandon the slush fund, Congress must legislate to ensure it cannot move forward.

The Trump administration has further confirmed that it will still pursue some of the settlement’s most egregious terms. When Blanche testified before Congress, he said that “nothing has changed” regarding the administration’s plans to implement terms beyond the slush fund, including the May 19 order barring both audits and tax-related probes pending against Trump, his family and his affiliates and claims on the wholly unrelated topics of “Lawfare and/or Weaponization.” Congress must not condone the president’s efforts to immunize and enrich himself and his inner circle and accordingly legislate to stop this unprecedented and self-serving arrangement from moving forward.

In addition to prohibiting the terms of this settlement, Congress must also prevent future conflicts by prohibiting a sitting president from suing his own administration and collecting damages from it during his term in office. There must be an investigation into whether the administration’s extraordinary grant of self-immunity violates existing law, and Congress must identify the legal gaps that legislation could fill. If nothing is done to confront the current administration’s collusive conduct, these harms could occur again. 

Read the letter here.

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