Fincher: Anti-Weaponization Fund would be nothing more than a cash stash for Trump’s pals
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
“If you ain’t cheatin’, you aint’ tryin’.” – sports adage
If you follow college sports, particularly the cutthroat Southeastern Conference, you probably have heard the above phrase more than once.
When winning is really important – and it often is in the SEC – you want your team to find every loophole, exploit every unconsidered angle, and exhaust every resource to gain an edge over opponents. Sometimes teams push the envelope too far.
A lot of folks point out how closely sports and politics resemble each other nowadays, and for some people that comes with the mindset of win at all costs over maintaining principles.
This mindset is less of a problem in sports because there are many teams, and no one team can dominate the rulemaking process.
It is potentially a much bigger problem in American politics because there are only two teams – Republicans and Democrats – and there are times when one party dominates government and applies the rules.
Sometimes it takes people from the party in charge to insist their teammates follow the rules to show the rules still matter.
We saw an example of this recently in a clash between President Donald Trump and several Republicans in Congress over the creation of what the Trump administration has named the Anti-Weaponization Fund.
The creation of the fund came about when Trump filed a lawsuit against the IRS in January. During Trump’s first presidency, an outside contractor working with the IRS accessed Trump’s and other wealthy Americans’ federal tax returns and released them to a couple of news organizations in which they were published.
This is illegal, and the perpetrator was sentenced to five years in prison by the U.S. Justice Department under President Joe Biden.
Trump’s January lawsuit stated he should be entitled to $10 billion in damages for reputational and financial harm caused by the release of his private tax information. Yet, on May 18 Trump withdrew his lawsuit and the Justice Department announced an out-of-court settlement.
The settlement money does not go to Trump but creates the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund. People who believe they have been unfairly investigated or prosecuted by the federal government for “political, personal, and/or ideological reasons” can file a claim to receive money from the settlement fund.
This fund is extremely problematic for many reasons, but here are the biggest issues.
First, Trump sued the government he currently leads for personal damages he incurred six-to-seven years ago when he was also in charge of government. This means he claims he was victimized by a government he ran.
Instead of proving his case in court, he approved setting up a fund of nearly $2 billion of taxpayer money with no court involvement or oversight in either the fund’s creation or its decision making to reward people claiming to be victimized by the government.
Trump claims this is a good deal because he thinks he could have settled for a lot more money and kept it all himself.
Furthermore, the attorney general, who is appointed by Trump, decides 80 percent of the members of the Anti-Weaponization Fund board, and the president can fire any board member at any time without providing justification. Does this sound like an independent board?
Finally, the board decides by majority vote to award or deny claims without any clear parameters as to what qualifies someone as being a victim of government weaponization.
Many believe the fund will open a door for Trump’s supporters – including those involved in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol – to be compensated for being charged or convicted of any federal crime.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, who has gotten crossways with Trump in the past called the fund a “payout pot for punks” on CNN’s “State of the Union” program, but he is not alone as several other Republicans in Congress have also expressed serious reservations.
Unless there are significant reforms made to the Anti-Weaponization Fund, the development of which is temporarily blocked by a federal court right now, there is a high probability its main purpose will be to give taxpayer money to people in Trump’s good graces.
The fund has no real rules to follow or oversight from sources other than Trump and his appointees.
Sometimes for the health of sports or politics or even society in general it takes someone from the same team to call out a wrong when he or she sees it. That can often come at the expense of a person’s reputation, finances or election chances.
Turns out if you ain’t cheatin’, you may have to try even harder. Let’s try harder.
Brandon Fincher is an academic journal editor at Auburn University. He lives in Opelika with his wife, daughter and two Labrador retrievers. You can find his writing at brandonfincher.com.
