Top Treasury lawyer quits after Trump anti-weaponization fund launch
A top Treasury Department attorney stepped down Monday, just hours after President Donald Trump and the Justice Department reached a settlement that created a new $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.
Brian Morrissey, the department’s general counsel, resigned just seven months after being confirmed by the Senate, according to The New York Times.
So far, neither Morrissey nor the Treasury Department has commented.
Fund parameters
The Anti-Weaponization Fund will distribute financial payments to people who claim they were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration.
The fund will be overseen by a five-member panel selected by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Among those who could potentially seek compensation are people convicted of crimes tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
President Donald Trump pardoned many Jan. 6 defendants shortly after returning to office, arguing they were treated unfairly by the Biden administration.
Reaction
Blanche defended the effort, saying: “The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again.”
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The $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund will stop processing claims near the end of 2028, before the next president takes office. Any remaining funds would return to the federal government.
Congressional approval would not be required for settlement payments.
The anti-weaponization fund was created as part of a deal in which Trump agreed to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the disclosure of his tax returns, which were later published by The New York Times and ProPublica.
Trump had argued that the IRS, which operates under the Treasury Department, failed to prevent the release of his family’s tax records.
The Washington Post cited a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team who said: “The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to the New York Times, ProPublica and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people.”
Critics are already challenging the agreement.
CBS News reports that 93 congressional Democrats filed court papers Monday arguing that the settlement could redirect billions in taxpayer funds to the president and his allies.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, also sharply criticized the arrangement, calling it “the most brazen act of self-dealing in the history of the presidency.”
“While Americans are struggling with an affordability crisis, President Trump plans to use nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to pay off his friends and allies — including potentially the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6th,” CREW President Donald K. Sherman said.
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