The Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate those who allege they were wrongly targeted by the Biden administration, as part of a settlement resolving President Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, according to The New York Times.
As part of the same arrangement, the one-page document, which Blanche signed, used the language "FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing" to describe the government's obligations regarding outstanding tax claims involving Trump, his relatives, and his business entities, according to The New York Times. Tax experts raised the possibility that the provision was illegal, The Times reported.
At stake for Trump was a $72.9 million refund he had collected beginning around 2010, and the deal appears to have eliminated the risk of an unfavorable IRS determination that analysts had estimated could have exceeded $100 million in liability, according to The New York Times. Trump had sought to recover every dollar he paid in federal income taxes for 2005 through 2008, the years when his earnings peaked as host of "The Apprentice."
Beyond the IRS suit, Trump's decision to settle also meant abandoning two additional civil claims worth a combined $230 million — one tied to scrutiny of his 2016 campaign's alleged Russia connections and another arising from the federal search of his Mar-a-Lago property in 2022, according to ABC News. Under the settlement terms, Trump himself would not be eligible to receive money from the compensation fund.
