“Under the immunity order, career IRS employees will be forced to terminate ongoing audits of the president and his businesses, giving the president a lucrative and unconstitutional emolument,” the lawsuit says. “That would be unprecedented under any circumstance.”
A labor union representing employees at the Internal Revenue Service has joined a lawsuit over the controversial settlement negotiated between Donald Trump and the IRS, which would give the president and members of his family immunity from future tax audits.
According to NBC News, the lawsuit was originally filed on behalf of plaintiffs including a January 6 prosecutor who was later fired by the Trump administration. More specifically, the claim challenges a provision of the proposed settlement between Trump and the IRS, which would provide more than $1 billion for the establishment of a so-called “Anti-Weaponization” fund. This fund would provide compensation for persons “persecuted” by past presidential administrations—a definition that would likely extend to criminals convicted of attacking the U.S. Capitol.
On Thursday, an amended version of the lawsuit was submitted to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging that Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche’s offer of audit immunity was unlawful and unconstitutional. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents career Internal Revenue Service employees, also announced its decision to join the lawsuit as a plaintiff.
If the proposed settlement is revived and enacted, the amended lawsuit says, it would provide the president “and his relatives and affiliates with a lucrative benefit not available to any other Americans.” NBC News notes that the lawsuit goes on to describe the settlement as “an unprecedented, unlawful, and breathtakingly corrupt attempt by the President and members of his cabinet to manipulate the legal process and laws intended to prevent political interference to achieve benefits that President Trump and his political allies could not have obtained lawfully.”
“It is unprecedented and unlawful for the IRS to allow the president and his family to be exempt from review,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, the group that filed the original lawsuit.
Perryman added that Democracy Forward is “honored to represent brave IRS employees in this first-of-its-kind case challenging the unlawful scheme, while we continue to pursue the challenge to the $1.776 billion slush fund that will line the pockets of violent criminals, including those who perpetrated the attacks on the Capitol and our elections on January 6.”
Perryman also said that Acting Attorney General Blanche cannot simply “tell the public the slush fund is dead while preserving every legal mechanism necessary to resurrect it at a moment’s notice.”
The amended lawsuit characterizes potential immunity from tax audits as an “unprecedented” and patently unlawful benefit.
“Under the immunity order, career IRS employees will be forced to terminate ongoing audits of the president and his businesses, giving the president a lucrative and unconstitutional emolument,” the lawsuit says. “That would be unprecedented under any circumstance.”
Sources
IRS workers group joins Jan. 6 ‘slush fund’ suit, seeking to block Trump audit carve-out
Lawsuit Takes Aim at Deal Granting Trump Sweeping Tax Protections
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