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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s Sunday night memo formally rescinding the $1.776 “anti-weaponization” fund leaves intact another key provision for President Trump: an order offering broad immunity to him, his adult children and their business for past conduct.
The memo, signed the day after the creation of the fund, has gotten less attention than its counterpart but nonetheless could help Trump avoid a tax bill as high as $100 million.
Blanche formally killed the “anti-weaponization” fund to appease GOP senators who had demanded he do so in writing and were holding up his nomination in committee, clearing the way for a vote on his confirmation.
But the May 19 immunity memo has other significant benefits for the Trump family.
Under that memo, the federal government is “barred and forever precluded” from any investigation, review or prosecution of any action by Trump or the business empire he runs with his children.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, earlier this year introduced a bill to block the memo from taking effect, calling it “the mother of all sweetheart deals.”
“This is a super-pardon for the ages. It shields all the Trumps and their businesses not only from enforcement of any taxes they may have dodged, or enforcement of any fines or payments they may owe to the government, but from ‘any and all’ consequences for violating any federal criminal or civil law. This means that Trump and his family get an unlimited number of ‘get out of jail free cards’ for any civil or criminal violations that could be investigated and prosecuted by the federal government,” Raskin said at the time.
On the tax front, Trump has spent years battling with the IRS over an audit of his returns.
A New York Times analysis of Trump’s returns found his tax bill from that time period could be as high as $100 million.
Blanche faced stiff opposition to the anti-weaponization fund from two key GOP senators — John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) — who both sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee that reviewed his nomination.
But concerns were apparent among the broader GOP conference, even as the two lame duck lawmakers became the face of the battle to kill the fund.
Cornyn had asked for some assurances on the Trump immunity deal, and his spokesperson Natalie Yezbick said in a statement that Blanche made “clear in a binding written document that the scope of the audit settlement is limited to only the plaintiffs, including the President, and the IRS.”
However, that was always the case, and Blanche’s Sunday night note did little of significance for the immunity memo.
In a note shared on X, Blanche wrote that the deal applied “only retroactively” — a detail clear from its inception.
Updated at 10:31 a.m. EDT
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