News headlines adopted Trump’s deceptive framing of his new $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund

Weaponization was not a Biden thing. It's a Trump thing.

There was no “weaponization” of the Biden Justice Department. There are no “victims” who deserve “compensation”. The $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund the Trump administration announced on Monday is not a legal “settlement” of Trump’s risible lawsuit against his own IRS.

Everything about this heist of tax dollars is a lie and a fraud. In its scope and its shamelessness, it is arguably the most staggeringly corrupt act this country has ever seen. It is a screaming red alert for democracy, a sign of the debasement and decline of our government to banana-republic levels.

From a journalistic perspective, this is all crucial context. What Trump did on Monday can’t just be announced, using the administration’s deceitful language. It must be explained. It must be identified as aberrational. Anything short of that is misinformation. It abets complacency.

And yet our major news outlets on Monday shied away from bluntly confronting their readers and viewers, choosing instead the lazy, deceptive route of using Trumpian terms in their headlines and leads, only later countered by “critics.”

Their headlines repeatedly described the deal as “unusual” – arguably the weakest adjective they could possibly have used.

In some cases – particularly at the New York Times web site – editors pooh-poohed the whole story, letting it fall almost entirely off the home page within a few hours.

The biggest news on Monday -- and it was very big news indeed -- was not DOJ’s deceitful announcement itself, but what it signified. The headlines should have reflected that. Something like:

• “New Trump $1.8 billion ‘slush fund’ called corrupt and illegal”

• “Trump’s new $1.8 billion fund could reward insurrectionists with tax dollars”

• “‘Staggering corruption’ alleged as Trump gives himself $1.8 billion to enrich supporters”

• Or this one, which appeared in The Times (of London): “Trump ‘creates $1.8bn slush fund to reward allies’”

There Was No Weaponization

My dear editor friends: You can’t let Trump describe something as an “anti-weaponization fund” -- even in quote marks -- without declaring loudly and clearly that the alleged “weaponization” was in fact the application of justice, involving guilty pleas and searing jury verdicts -- and that it is Trump who has weaponized the Justice Department by using bogus investigations and failed prosecutions to punish people who stood up to him.

And yet the Wall Street Journal headlined its article: “Justice Department Creates Unusual $1.8 Billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’.”

The Washington Post, which for a while embraced the passive voice -- “In unusual deal, a $1.8 billion fund that could help Trump allies is created” -- eventually settled on “Trump’s deal to drop suit against IRS creates $1.8B ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’.”

NBC headlined its coverage “DOJ sets up $1.7B ‘anti-weaponization’ fund after Trump drops IRS lawsuit.” CBS said: “Trump settles IRS lawsuit, sets up $1.7B fund for claims of ‘weaponization’.”

There Was No Settlement

Earlier Monday morning, Trump dropped his lawsuit against his own IRS – and its laughable $10 billion demand – amid signs that Judge Kathleen M. Williams was going to throw it out because Trump couldn’t sue himself.

Notably, there was no “settlement” in the case. To be clear: “There is no settlement of record,” Judge Williams wrote on Monday afternoon.

Trump’s flunkies at the Justice Department and the IRS tried to frame it as a settlement – even drafting something that looked like one. But legally, the two moves were unrelated: First Trump dropped the case. Then the Justice Department announced the new fund.

Nevertheless, journalists who should have known better embraced the Trump narrative, with its attempt to give the move a patina of legality.

NPR’s coverage was particularly naïve. “Judge dismisses Trump’s IRS lawsuit, paving the way for a settlement,” Carrie Johnson reported.

“DOJ rolls out nearly $1.8B ‘anti-weaponization fund’ as part of Trump’s IRS settlement,” Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Danny Nguyen reported stenographically. Like many other outlets, Politico quoted Todd Blanche – Trump’s former defense lawyer, now acting attorney general – without any pushback:

“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,” Blanche said in a statement.

The gall!

“DOJ offering $1.776 billion ‘lawfare’ fund to settle Trump IRS lawsuit,” proclaimed USA Today.

“Justice Department announces nearly $1.8B fund to compensate Trump allies in a deal to drop IRS suit,” the Associated Press announced -- as if there were something to “compensate” anyone for.

Presumptively Illegal

The deal should also have been treated by news organizations as presumptively illegal – like most every other major policy move Trump has made. In this particular case, it’s even more obvious than usual. Nothing like this has ever been done before. And the stipulations clearly violate the congressional intent behind DOJ’s settlement fund: the $1.8 billion is to be deposited into a separate account, then distributed by a hand-picked board with almost no limits and no oversight; also, it it to be liquidated before Trump leaves office.

It will surely be challenged in court, and when judge after judge declares it illegal, the legacy media will act surprised.

Even the Best Wasn’t Good Enough

The New York Times, which for some reason buried its coverage online, eventually published an article that went atop the print edition, headlined: “Justice Dept. Sets Up $1.8 Billion Fund That Could Funnel Money to Trump Allies.”

The article included a fair amount of context, including a fourth paragraph quote from Donald K. Sherman, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, saying “This is one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.”

But the overall format was still: Here’s what the Trump people said; here’s the alternate view. Here’s how they led the story:

The Trump administration announced on Monday the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to compensate those who claim they were targeted by the Biden Justice Department and Democrats, forging a pipeline to funnel taxpayer money to President Trump’s allies.

What the readers deserved was the “truth sandwich” instead. Something like:

In what experts called an unparalleled act of corruption, the Trump administration announced on Monday the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to funnel taxpayer money to Trump supporters who have falsely claimed that they were targeted by the Biden Justice Department and Democrats.

And where are the news analyses? Where are the second-day stories, raising a legion of concerns?

The New York Times does get credit for a second-day story of sorts, by Andrew Duehren, revealing the existence of an internal memo in which IRS lawyers cited a number of weaknesses in Trump’s lawsuit and urged the Justice Department to get it thrown out of court. But Duehren’s descriptions of the fund itself are anemic.

And Politico’s Josh Gerstein reported on a wild, sweeping one-page document posted on the DOJ website early Tuesday, which states that the IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing “examinations” of Trump, “related or affiliated individuals,” and related trusts and businesses.

The only strong news analysis I saw in the major legacy news outlets was by CNN’s Stephen Collinson, headlined “Trump’s compensation plan is a metaphor for a brazen presidency.” It was sadly confined to beyond CNN’s new paywall. Collinson wrote:

President Donald Trump’s new $1.776 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration is the kind of scheme that might once have irrevocably stained a presidency.

Yet Trump has spent years shattering ethical expectations surrounding his office. His brazen leadership has long shed the power to shock.

Still, the plan, announced by the Justice Department on Monday and denounced by critics as a slush fund, is a study of his political project in microcosm.

On a personal level, I found the coverage of this travesty pretty damn depressing.

If our news organizations are incapable of conveying to the public how extraordinarily and alarmingly corrupt it is for Trump to take $1.8 billion in tax dollars and put it into a slush fund for people willing to break the law for him, well, I just don’t know what the point of it all is.