Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, went on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday to unload on the Trump administration's proposed $1.7 billion IRS settlement arrangement. His verdict? It's an unconstitutional "political slush fund" that sidesteps Congress entirely.
"Only Congress has the power to appropriate money, and Congress never voted on creating this $1.7 billion political slush fund at the Department of Justice," Raskin said, according to ABC News.
The proposal in question: President Donald Trump would drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for creating a compensation fund for people who claim they were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration. The deal might also include a public apology from the IRS.
This isn't just a legal technicality — it's a political firestorm. Democrats have been piling on. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called the potential arrangement "among the most corrupt acts in American political history," while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused Trump of treating the Treasury as a "personal piggy bank." Raskin himself had previously labeled it "a massive and unprecedented presidential plunder of the American people."
The compensation program could reportedly include individuals charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, along with Trump-affiliated entities. That's where things get constitutionally dicey.
Raskin pointed to Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says the federal government can't spend money to pay for "insurrection or rebellion." "If you look at Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, it says that no money can be spent by the federal government for the purposes of paying for insurrection or rebellion," he said.
The legal dispute has already caught the attention of the courts. In April, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams questioned whether Trump, as a sitting president, could even sue agencies that fall under his own executive authority.
So what's next? When asked if Democrats might sue to block the settlement, Raskin was blunt: "Undoubtedly, we will."
