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Few actions on the part of the Trump administration have drawn as much bipartisan scorn as the DOJ-IRS settlement that aims to create a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, which critics say amounts to a “slush fund” for January 6 rioters. Now a legal expert has laid bare the “shameful spin” underlying the supposed justification of the fund. At the core of the administration’s case is the assertion that the IRS leaked President Donald Trump’s tax returns during his first term, allegedly with the intention of smearing his reputation. As Southern District of New York US Attorney Jay Claton framed it on Thursday, the IRS “intentionally” released Trump’s returns to “embarrass” him while he w

Democrats have come up with a new idea to stop the Department of Justice's new "anti-weaponization" fund, but it has several significant hurdles. Trump sued the IRS in January after claiming the agency leaked his tax returns. Politico reported in 2025 that 400,000 Americans had their taxes leaked like Trump's. However, Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion. Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, signed an agreement that would drop the Trump IRS lawsuit if the government

The ongoing case of a missing Republican congressman took another odd turn this week, per a new report from NOTUS, with neighbors revealing a new wrinkle to the case.Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is a New Jersey Republican who has not been seen in Washington D.C., for well over two months, raising serious concerns about his well-being as well as his chances in the coming midterms, given that his seat in the House is considered competitive. House Speaker Mike Johnson, after weeks of prodding, revealed recently that Kean is said to be dealing wi

As more and more Senate Republicans break ranks with him, President Donald Trump says he’s not sure if he still has control over them.Republican Senators are increasingly pushing back on key elements of President Donald Trump’s agenda, especially the $1 billion for security enhancements to his White House ballroom project, and his $1.8 billion “weaponization” of the DOJ fund for alleged victim

Liberal economist Paul Krugman strongly disagrees with many of President Donald Trump and his allies' arguments about European economies, which, he argues, are much better off than MAGA Republicans are claiming. Many European countries, according to Krugman, are ahead of the United States when it comes to everything from health care access to life expectancy to parental leave to infrastructure. But in a Substack column posted on Thursday, Krugman zeroes in on a problem in Europe that he says is quite real.

One of President Donald Trump's U.S. attorneys at the Justice Department doesn't think Americans will care much about the billions of dollars that the president is demanding from the taxpayer. Speaking to CNBC on Thursday morning, Jay Clayton, who oversees the Southern District of New York, said that Trump's taxpayer-funded slush fund will disappear from the narrative by next week."I don't think we're gonna be talking about this issue in a week because the American people are gonna say, 'Look, they leaked his tax returns, they tried to destroy him. Okay, we resolved that,'" said Clayton.

On Thursday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will meet with congressional Republicans to push for acceptance of the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” settlement that has been widely criticized as a “slush fund” for J6ers. According to Bloomberg, Republicans have major questions about the fund, with some going so far as to call it “tyranny.”Among these skeptical Republicans is Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), who told reporters that Republicans want “an explanation of how it’s going to work,” saying, “We want to hea

Ahead of their meeting with Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Trump White House sent U.S. senators, on Thursday, a one-page U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) memo on the Trump Administration's "weaponization fund." And the memo shows that President Donald Trump has found a loophole to pay out senators from the fund.Punchbowl News' Andrew Desiderio, posting a copy of the memo on X, reports, "White House just sent this one-pager to Senate GOP offices on the $1.8B 'weaponization' fund ahead of Blanche's meeting with Senate R’s. It says there are 'no partisan restrictions' [and] Dems can apply too [and] that senators 'who

alt headline: Trump's raging with lawmaker's wife is really about the hole in his soul: columnist Salon's Amanda Marcotte spoke to Greg Sargent for The New Republic's morning podcast on Thursday, in which the political commentators agreed that President Donald Trump's psychosis is on full display once again. The conversation began with Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), who is not only one of the most endangered Republicans up for reelection in the 2026 midterm elections. The Republican is one of the few willing to fight back against Trump's new slush fund that will dole out ca

When Donald Trump narrowly won the 2024 presidential election, one of the things that greatly frustrated Democratic Party insiders was the gains he made among Generation Z voters (especially young men). Democrats were hoping that Gen-Z would be even more favorable to their party than Millennials; instead, Trump made significant gains among voters in their twenties. But according to Salon's Heather Digby Parton, Trump's war against Iran is putting those gains at risk.Parton, in Salon, describes a growing g