The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is working to finalize the launch of a so-called “Truth and Justice Commission” and establish a compensation fund of almost two billion dollars for victims of alleged government “weaponization,” according to a Saturday ABC News report.
Sources familiar with the matter told ABC that US President Donald Trump is pushing to create the fund in exchange for dropping his ongoing lawsuit against the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Trump sued the IRS after a 2023 case in which a government contractor pleaded guilty to stealing Trump’s tax information and leaking it to media outlets.
The idea for the fund and the “President Donald J. Trump Truth and Justice Commission,” responsible for awarding the funds, arose after months of discussion between the White House and DOJ officials who sought to create a legal justification for Trump to be directly compensated for settling his case against the IRS, according to ABC.
Sources told ABC that DOJ lawyers argued internally that the conflict of interest posed by Trump’s position as president could be ignored. Trump was a private citizen when the lawsuit was filed, but is now considered a public official and has significant power over the government agency he is suing.
According to the sources, the lawyers previously argued that the lawsuit should be allowed to proceed as is, with Trump as the plaintiff, even though he is directly in charge of the defendants, given that no alternative legal procedure existed.
That plan was eventually scrapped when the judge overseeing Trump’s lawsuit began raising concerns about the conflict of interest, the sources stated. Instead, the idea of the $1.776 billion compensation fund was raised.
In exchange for the fund’s establishment, Trump will also drop two civil claims for $230 million related to the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago and the Russia collusion investigation carried out during his first presidential term.
Sourced added that Trump would not be eligible to receive direct payment from the fund, but entities associated with him would not be barred from submitting claims.
