Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | What happened and why it matters

The government just agreed it can never, ever audit Trump again.

On Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a one-page document that is, depending on your point of view, either a legal settlement or one of the most astonishing acts of self-dealing in the history of the American presidency.

The document is an addendum to Trump’s agreement with the IRS, reached Monday, in which Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns. In exchange, the federal government agreed to create a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate people Trump says were victimized by the weaponization of the justice system. That part was already extraordinary. But the addendum Blanche signed Tuesday goes further.

In language that deserves to be read slowly, Blanche agreed that the United States government is, and this is the actual word used in the document, “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims” that “have been or could have been” asserted by the IRS against Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, their companies, and any “related or affiliated individuals, including family or others filing jointly.” The addendum covers all tax returns filed before the effective date of the agreement.

Forever barred. Those are the words the sitting Attorney General of the United States used to describe the government’s ability to ever again audit or seek payment from the president of the United States.

To understand the full shape of what just happened, you have to hold a few facts together at once. Trump sued the IRS over the leak of his tax records. That lawsuit was brought against his own administration, in a case where he controls the defendants. A federal judge had already raised an eyebrow at whether the two sides were “adversarial” enough to constitute a real lawsuit. A panel of attorneys the judge appointed called the arrangement something that raised the specter of collusion. Now the administration has settled with itself, created a fund that will be distributed with no meaningful oversight, barred auditors from ever examining the president’s finances again, and the Attorney General signed off on all of it.

The $1.776 billion fund itself warrants its own paragraph. The number is not accidental. The money will come from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, which exists to pay court-ordered legal settlements, not to compensate political allies. Among the people expected to receive payments are individuals charged in connection with January 6th. Trump has authority under the proposed structure to remove commission members without cause. There is no required disclosure of decision-making. Legal experts told the New York Times the arrangement was without precedent. Some DOJ officials raised internal ethical objections. None of it changed the outcome.

Why it matters: a president has used the machinery of the government he controls to permanently shield himself and his family from tax accountability, enrich his political allies with public money, and settle a lawsuit he brought against himself.

Thomas Massie lost. The last Republican dissenter is gone.

It was late Tuesday night in Hebron, Kentucky, and Thomas Massie walked out to face a crowd that was still cheering for him even though the race was over. Ed Gallrein had won. Trump had won. The most expensive House primary in American history, $32 million spent on a single congressional seat in Northern Kentucky, had ended the way Trump’s team had always said it would.

This is worth understanding in context. Massie wasn’t a moderate. He wasn’t a Democrat in Republican clothing. He was a libertarian conservative who had served Kentucky’s 4th District since 2012, lived off the grid on a farm, built his own solar panels, and voted against government spending with a consistency most Republicans only perform. Trump called him “the worst congressman in the long and storied history of the Republican Party.” What Massie actually did was vote against the Big Beautiful Bill, push for the release of the Epstein files, oppose the Iran strikes, and refuse to pretend the deficit didn’t exist. In other words, he did things that used to be considered core conservative principles.

His loss completes something. Bill Cassidy is gone. The Indiana resisters are gone. Now Massie is gone. Every Republican who visibly defied Trump is out of office, one way or another. The caucus that remains has watched this happen in real time and drawn the obvious lesson.

Massie signed off with a tease, telling the crowd, “We’ll talk about 2028.” His supporters started chanting “run again.” Whether he does or doesn’t, the message of his concession speech is already out there: we stirred something up, and we’re just getting started.

Why it matters: there is no longer a single Republican in Congress whose record shows a willingness to oppose the president on matters of principle. That is not hyperbole. It is just where we are. What that means for legislation, for oversight, for the basic functioning of a co-equal branch of government, is a question that will define the next two years.

The $1.8 billion fund: what it is, where the money comes from, and who decides who gets paid.

Since the fund is showing up in two separate stories this week, it is worth taking a moment to explain exactly what it is, because the details matter more than the headline.

The formal name is the Truth and Justice Commission. It was created as part of Trump’s settlement agreement with his own Justice Department, reached Monday and formalized Tuesday. The fund will draw from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, a permanent congressional appropriation that exists specifically to pay court-ordered judgments against the government. It has never been used this way before.

Who qualifies for payment? According to sources familiar with the terms, the fund could pay claims from nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with January 6th, as well as individuals Trump or his administration designate as victims of the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the justice system. That is a category with no fixed definition and no independent arbiter.

Who decides? The commission’s members will be appointed by Trump and can be removed by Trump without cause. There is no requirement to disclose the commission’s decision-making process or criteria. There is no meaningful congressional review mechanism. Legal experts who have reviewed the structure describe it as a fund that is, functionally, under the president’s personal control.

The DOJ settled the lawsuit that created this fund with itself. The judge overseeing Trump’s original IRS case had already questioned whether the parties were sufficiently adversarial. A panel of attorneys she appointed said the circumstances raised “the specter” of a collusive arrangement. The judge likely lacks the power to stop money from flowing even if she finds the deal improper.

Democratic members of Congress are calling it corruption. Some Republican members are staying quiet. A small number of former DOJ officials have spoken out publicly. The fund is moving forward.

Why it matters: the concern here is not about whether the individual January 6th defendants were treated fairly by the previous administration. Reasonable people disagree about that. The concern is about a structure in which a sitting president uses public money, drawn from a fund designed for court-ordered judgments, to compensate his political supporters, with himself as the final authority on who receives it. That structure, without oversight, without transparency, without separation between the president’s political interests and the distribution of funds, is something the American legal system has not encountered before. It should be named clearly for what it appears to be.

That’s your Wednesday briefing. Stay informed, stay sharp, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Love this newsletter? Share it. Have a tip or a story worth knowing? Reply and let me know.