Todd Blanche confirmation hearing

作者 Huda Thomas: Donald Trump

Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against his own government with the specific intent to lose. The strategic outcome is that the IRS is now legally blocked from ever auditing him again. On January 29, he initiated this case in federal court in Miami, suing the IRS and the Treasury Department in his personal capacity. The grievance concerned the leak of his tax returns from years prior. Since he runs these agencies, the lawyers tasked with defending them answer directly to him. They never mounted any defense. The parties reached a settlement on May 18. Section III of the signed agreement shows that Trump received a formal apology from the United States. He received no monetary payment or damages of any kind. Zero dollars changed hands. On the surface, this looks like a total loss. He asked for billions and walked away with a paper saying sorry. But the next day changed everything. Todd Blanche, who served as Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney before joining the Justice Department, signed a one-page addendum to that settlement. This addendum shifted the entire direction of the deal. In capital letters, the document states the US is FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing any claim the IRS has brought or could have brought. This bar applies to Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization. It covers any return filed before May 19, 2026. The New York Times reported that an audit predating his first presidency could have left him owing hundreds of millions. That audit is now unreachable. Blanche could have simply written a memo. A memo would have been faster and quieter. But a memo gets shredded by the next attorney general on day one. A release buried inside a settled federal lawsuit is a contract. Contracts survive administrations. So Trump needed a case. Any case. The $10 billion number was just what made it look like a real one. The document gives up plenty more details. Plaintiffs' counsel wrote into the recitals that but for the settlement they would amend the complaint. They stated they would likely add a class claim. That is a threat printed inside the agreement it is threatening. Section IV pre-argues its own tax treatment. It states the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund isn't taxable income to Trump. The reason given is that he receives no economic benefit. The fund's five members serve until the President removes them. He can remove any of them without cause. Section VI bars any appeal or judicial review of what it pays out. Whatever is left after December 2028 goes to a federal account the President designates. Section IX has both sides agreeing in advance to defend the agreement together in any forum. Judge Kathleen Williams read all of it in July. She called the lawsuit an attempt to manipulate the judicial process. She referred one of Trump's lawyers to the Florida Bar. She barred another from her district for a year. She prohibited the parties from calling the thing a settlement at all. Here is what should be bothering you though. Charles Littlejohn, the contractor who leaked those returns, is serving five years in federal prison. He leaked Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk too. The crime was real. The victim was real. And the victim turned it into something no president has ever held. But the defense here is genuinely decent. Trump didn't take a dollar. Ken Griffin got the identical apology from the IRS in 2024 over the same leak. The settlement cites his case by name. Two Republican senators forced the $1.776 billion fund to be terminated before Blanche was confirmed 50 to 49. But the audit shield survived every bit of that. Blanche's Justice Department is at the Eleventh Circuit right now arguing to reinstate the rest of it. The government is literally sitting on both sides of that appeal.