Could this be the act that gives Republican members of Congress the backbone to stand up to the president?
Any clear-eyed review of President Donald Trump’s “settlement” providing $1.776 billion for him to reward people, possibly including those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 would see it as wrong, and that’s a big concern during an already contentious election year.
Remove politics and partisanship and it becomes easy to see.
A president sues the IRS, an agency he controls, then decides to settle out of court, essentially negotiating with himself. That settlement gives him the aforementioned sum to reward victims of “lawfare” unconnected to the suit — victims identified by a panel he controls. It’s a clear conflict of interest.
Also, the president, who believes he was unfairly treated by the IRS has, along with his family, been given immunity from any audits — putting him above the law.
The justice system simply shouldn’t work that way.
Not that it hasn’t been inching there over recent administrations from both parties.
The founders established a Constitution designed, through checks and balances, to keep any one of the three branches of government from consolidating power and engaging in unchecked corruption. If corruption is blatant, it is because one of those checks has failed.
Unfortunately, Congress has through the years abdicated its role in that regard.
Maybe that’s changing.
Trump succeeded in ousting Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy in a recent primary. He has endorsed a Republican challenger to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Both were apparent retaliations for disloyalty. But both turned those Republicans against the president for the rest of this year.
The $1,776 billion “lawfare” fund was seen as instrumental in motivating Republicans to stall an immigration crackdown bill and $1 billion for security, including at the president’s new White House ballroom.
The New York Times quoted prominent Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell saying, “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.”
The upcoming election appears to now be stronger than the sway of a president who will be a lame duck once the final ballot is cast this November.
The president’s poll numbers have dropped, even in Utah.
It’s important to note that Trump’s actions were not the first questionable uses of presidential power. President Joe Biden issued his son Hunter a full and unconditional pardon in December of 2024 — an act that also was repugnant. Hunter was the first child of an active president to be convicted of a crime. He had pleaded guilty to tax evasion and found guilty of illegal drug use while possessing a gun.
We’re certain many fathers of convicted children feel as Biden, the father, did. However, only a president could do something about it, and that was unseemly.
Even the practice of rewarding unconnected third parties to a litigation isn’t new. In what now seems a lesson in political irony, Trump’s first-term attorney general, Jeff Sessions, issued a department-wide memo prohibiting any settlement agreement on behalf of the United States that would result in payments “to non-governmental, third parties that were not directly harmed by the conduct,” according to a press release issued at the time.
That came in response to an Obama administration settlement that had directed banks to contribute to various Democrat-friendly organizations in a case concerning questionable lending practices leading up to the Great Recession.
“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people — not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power,” Sessions said in the press release that now seems quaintly old fashioned.
Politicians can twist reason to make victims out of just about anybody, but Americans deserve better.
The normalization of presidents abusing the justice system is a cause to mourn, even if it involves mechanisms that are legal. It is a violation of trust, and it is beneath the dignity of the office. The more it becomes normal practice, the more it adds to the cynicism and distrust already metastasizing through the American body politic.
Trump said he had nothing to do with the settlement that resulted in the fund for people mistreated by the government. But the money will be doled out by a five-person panel whose members Trump can freely fire.
Congress, regardless of which party is in power, has the power to assert its authority. As the nation readies to celebrate its 250th birthday, it’s good to see clearly the role of the three branches of government, particularly when one branch steps too far.