Top Judiciary Democrat Raskin blasts possible Trump-IRS settlement
The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee on Sunday blasted the potential fund to compensate allies of President Donald Trump, calling it a "political slush fund" that he said is "illegal" and "unconstitutional."
"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, and Congress would never pass that," said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee's ranking member, in an interview with ABC News' "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos.
"This is just an invention on his part, but even if Congress wanted to do it, I think it's clearly unconstitutional on a number of grounds," he added.
ABC News reported Thursday that Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of the $1.776 billion fund to be used to give settlements to individuals who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter said.
"We know that the president wants to keep setting up these political slush funds," Raskin said. "All of this is outside of the Constitution. All of it is outside of congressional spending power, and so it is illegal. It is unconstitutional."
A commission overseeing the compensation fund would have total authority to settle claims, which could be brought by the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and entities associated with Trump himself.
Raskin said that compensating the now-pardoned Jan. 6 rioters would be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"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. So, to the extent that he wants to give a million dollars to each of 1,600 pardoned rioters and insurrectionists, we think that that's an unconstitutional use of money," Raskin said.
Raskin called on Congress to stop the fund from moving forward.
Asked by Stephanopoulos whether Democrats would file lawsuits as well, Raskin said, "Undoubtedly, we will."
"But remember, we are the Article I branch. We have the power over spending, and so we have to assert our spending power to block this," he said. "If our Republican colleagues have any respect for the Constitution and the powers of Congress, they will move to block it."
