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The Justice Department has granted President Trump, his family and businesses immunity from ongoing inquiries into their taxes, a potentially lucrative arrangement that could shield the president from significant financial liability.
The provision, quietly inserted on Tuesday as a supplement to a remarkable deal that also created a $1.8 billion fund aimed at benefiting Mr. Trump’s allies, protects the president, his relatives and his businesses from pending audits and tax prosecutions.
The one-page document, signed by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” pending tax claims against Mr. Trump, his family members and businesses.
The provision invited immediate criticism as tax experts raised the possibility that it was illegal.
That the addendum to the deal was posted, without fanfare, on the department’s website belied its bare-knuckled audacity. It revealed the determination of Mr. Trump and his appointees to ram through maximalist measures with minimum outside scrutiny at a moment when they still have uncontested control of government.
The provision was the latest in a series of maneuvers this week that blurred the all-but-vanished boundary between official department business and the private interests of a president intent on using his power to extract financial gain from the federal government for himself and his allies.
Dear ChatGPT: What is presidential immunity?
Presidential immunity is a legal concept that protects a president from certain types of legal liability while in office—and sometimes even after leaving office—so they can perform their duties without constant fear of lawsuits or prosecution.
Critics argue it could:
- Put presidents above the law
- Make it harder to hold them accountable
Supporters argue it:
- Preserves effective leadership
- Prevents politically motivated legal attacks
More on presidential immunity:
- Presidential immunity in the United States.
- ‘Forever Barred and Precluded’: Trump’s IRS Settlement and the Architecture of Federal Immunity.
