Judge Orders Trump Officials to Divulge Names of Those Who Set Up $1.8 Billion Fund
The plan to create a fund that could have funneled taxpayer money to the president’s allies drew repeated scrutiny, including a rare rebuke from Senate Republicans.
A federal magistrate judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to reveal the identities of the people who devised a contentious plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate those who believed they were wronged by political prosecutions.
Mr. Blanche has repeatedly said the fund is dead, but President Trump has been more circumspect, indicating his support for compensating people like the rioters who were prosecuted for attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Judge Davis’s order, issued in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., came as part of a lawsuit challenging the legality of the fund and another measure by the Justice Department that benefited Mr. Trump. That provision granted the president, his family and his businesses expansive protections against all past tax investigations.
Both the fund and the tax immunity deal emerged from backroom negotiations between Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers and senior Justice Department officials. The measures were made public after Mr. Trump agreed to dismiss a lawsuit he had filed against the Internal Revenue Service, seeking damages for claims that the agency had failed to stop the release of some of his tax returns to news organizations.
