Washington, D.C. — Today, President Donald Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, just days before a judge could consider dismissing it based on a blatant conflict of interest. The U.S. Department of Justice then announced it is creating a $1.7 billion fund as a “settlement” of the case to compensate the president’s allies and others investigated for criminal wrongdoing. In response, Ben Olinsky, senior vice president of Structural Reform and Governance at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
This is corruption on a staggering scale that this country has never witnessed from a sitting president. President Trump turned a bogus lawsuit into a rigged settlement that could be used to reward his acolytes with taxpayer funds. And this massive slush fund could be doled out to Trump supporters with virtually no oversight. Trump’s abuse of power just gets more brazen as leaders in Congress refuse to hold him to account.
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