Opinion | Inside the $1.8 Billion MAGA Payout Fund

$1.8 billion. That’s $1.8 billion of your tax dollars potentially going into a slush fund to reward President Trump’s loyalists. “Designed to provide payments to Americans who claim to be victims of what he describes as government weaponization.” In one-dollar bills, that would stack more than 100 miles. And if it were split evenly among the Jan. 6 rioters, each one would receive more than $1 million. The administration says it’s just —— “Reimbursing people that were horribly treated ——” “Compensating Americans for the lawfare that we saw under the last administration.” That is false. The American people should be furious that Trump’s allies could get paid a pile of tax money that’s around the amount that the president cut from health research last year. This is the opinion of the New York Times editorial board. So how did this slush fund come to be? Earlier this year, Donald Trump, the individual, sued the I.R.S. over the leaking of his tax returns from his first term. But because Donald Trump, the president, oversees the I.R.S., the negotiation was essentially a battle between his personally hired lawyers and his federally appointed lawyers. But the negotiations still went through because Trump’s Justice Department was in charge. And because Trump’s Justice Department was in charge, the final deal was extremely favorable to him. In addition to the slush fund for his supporters, Mr. Trump and his family seem to be off the hook from all ongoing tax payment audits, too. This means that the $100 million he could have potentially owed from questionable accounting maneuvers is now down to 0. So one more thing we should worry about is the person appointing the board of overseers, who decides who gets all this money: Todd Blanche. He’s not only a Trump loyalist, he also used to be his personal lawyer. So while JD Vance claims —— “Republicans can apply for it, Democrats can apply for it. It’s going to go through a normal process where we vet everything.” The American people actually cannot trust the administration to manage this money, because it’s not being decided by someone who’s impartial to the president and his agenda. Not to mention that Trump can fire anyone on the board. The other thing that’s essential to understand is that if the fund goes through, it will be another step toward rewriting the history of the Jan. 6 riot. One of Trump’s first moves at the beginning of his term was to pardon more than 1,500 people who stormed the Capitol. This slush fund is a reward from the federal government to the very people who attacked the federal government when they stormed the Capitol. The American people should be deeply worried that this fund incentivizes future lawlessness from Trump and his allies. Trump is showing that he will use his power to protect people who break the law on his behalf, and even reward them for it.