This is an adapted excerpt from the May 13 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
It is hard to keep track of the long list of shady deals, no-bid contracts and crypto schemes that have been the hallmark of Donald Trump’s presidency. But pay attention to the one he is about to pull off, because it’s got a chance to be the greatest heist in American history: a direct transfer of billions of your taxpayer dollars directly to the president, all dressed up as a “settlement” of a lawsuit in which he is both the plaintiff and the defendant.
It would be a maneuver that could nearly triple his net worth, and it’s flying under the radar.
The New York Times, citing three people familiar with the matter, reported that in the coming days, Trump’s Justice Department may pay out to the president to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.
There is no scale for corruption like this in the United States. It would put every other Trump grift to shame.
Trump filed that suit back in January, saying the agency should have done more to prevent the leak of his tax returns during the 2020 presidential campaign. The president, in effect, sued himself for more than $10 billion, nearly the entire annual IRS budget — dollars that would come from the U.S. Treasury, which he also oversees.
Whether legal or not, I am of the strong opinion that this is an attempt at the largest theft ever by an American politician. It is a conflict of interest so enormous that the term itself doesn’t even really capture what’s happening.
In fact, last month, a federal judge in the case gave Trump’s private lawyers and the government’s attorneys until May 20 to explain how the case isn’t a scam to enrich the president, writing, “Although President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.” The judge added that it “raises questions here over whether the Parties here are truly antagonistic to each other.”
So the lawyers have less than a week to file briefs that would convince the judge to let Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit continue. But on Wednesday, sources told the Times that “White House and Justice Department officials have in recent days been exploring ways to potentially settle the suit before that deadline.”
They’re essentially trying to find a settlement that would be agreeable to Trump, and shovel a ton of cash over to him in return for him dropping the suit. The mob has a word for that kind of move: “shakedown.”
No one has ever taken as much money in the history of the nation as Trump is attempting to hoover up from the federal government right now.
The sum Trump is asking for, $10 billion, is the same amount in childcare subsidies that he froze last year. It is almost enough to fund federal disaster relief for a year. It is enough to fund the entire National Park Service for five years. It’s enough to fund the Peace Corps for 20 years. And it could all go straight into the Trump family coffers.
This is like a president backing a truck up to the doors of Fort Knox, demanding entry, piling gold bars into the back of the truck and driving off.
I am telling you, there is no scale for corruption like this in the United States. It would put every other Trump grift to shame: the gold Trump phone; the just-announced Trump Tower in Tbilisi, Georgia; the bid for defense contracts by a drone company that two of Trump’s sons are backing; the Truth Social media empire that lost $406 million in the last quarter alone; the apparent quid pro quo pardons; the shady crypto token payments from foreign states — all of that pales in comparison to the $10 billion Trump could receive from this settlement.
According to Forbes, since retaking the White House, Trump has already tripled his wealth to $6.5 billion. And if his government settles his lawsuit the way he wants, his wealth would nearly triple again.
This is like a president backing a truck up to the doors of Fort Knox, demanding entry, piling gold bars into the back of the truck and driving off.
And Trump doesn’t even deny that he’ll pressure his subordinates to pay him off. He just claims the money will go to a good cause. He told NBC News in February, “Any money that I win, I’ll give it to charity, 100% to charity, charities that will be approved by government or whatever.”
But do you trust Trump to follow through on that? Remember, this is the same guy who promised to make things cheaper for you. And how does that promise look today?
New Labor Department data released Tuesday showed that inflation has gotten so bad that it’s eating all the gains Americans made in wages for the first time in three years.
Across the country, prices just keep going up as Trump’s bumbling war on Iran makes oil, gas, fertilizer and lifesaving medicines rarer and more expensive.
This is what life looks like under a mad king; every day brings a new “let them eat cake” moment.
And now, as Americans suffer through the war and the economy that Trump imposed on them, he is thinking about helping himself to billions more of your money.
It has never been clearer who he is looking out for.
Allison Detzel contributed.
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