President Donald Trump may have lost one controversial perk, but he walked away with the one that really matters: protection from a massive IRS tax bill.
In a last-minute deal to win over skeptical Republican senators, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche scrapped Trump’s widely criticized “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” But the part of the agreement that saves Trump tens of millions of dollars? That stayed firmly in place.
In other words, the political optics changed. The tax immunity didn’t.
Blanche signed new orders Sunday night after Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), demanded changes before moving forward with his nomination for attorney general. The fund was eliminated, clearing away one of the biggest political headaches surrounding the deal.
But the order shielding Trump from ongoing IRS enforcement survived almost untouched.
The revised language simply narrows the protection to the plaintiffs named in Trump’s lawsuit—Trump himself, his sons, and the Trump Organization. It also specifies that the immunity applies only to ongoing audits involving past tax returns, not any future tax filings.
Those tweaks satisfied Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who announced Monday that they would now support Blanche’s confirmation.
“My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions,” Blanche wrote on social media. “We have enjoyed good faith discussions.”
The changes appear to have done exactly what Blanche needed. After delaying his confirmation vote, Senate Republicans are now expected to move his nomination through committee, with a full Senate vote potentially coming this week.
But while Republicans celebrated fixing the wording, the biggest benefit for Trump remained intact.
The original settlement stemmed from Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax information. Legal experts questioned the agreement from the beginning because Trump was effectively suing his own administration, allowing his Justice Department to negotiate a settlement with… itself.
Even the federal judge overseeing the case blasted the arrangement, calling it “an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President.” The judge went a step further, referring Justice Department attorneys for possible sanctions.
Despite that rebuke, Blanche’s revised orders leave the heart of the agreement untouched: the IRS is still barred from pursuing the ongoing tax enforcement actions covered by the settlement.
That could prove enormously valuable.
Trump has faced an IRS audit involving as much as $100 million in potential back taxes, an investigation that had been underway for years before the settlement effectively shut it down.
Meanwhile, other victims whose tax information was leaked by the same IRS contractor have had far less success. Unlike Trump, they were turned away by the courts despite pursuing similar claims.
So while the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is officially gone, the outcome that mattered most to Trump survived the political negotiations.
Republicans may have demanded changes before confirming Blanche, but in the end, Trump still emerged with what critics say is the biggest prize of all: protection from the largest tax battle of his life.
