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conflict of interest
Abandoning the 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' Won’t Solve Todd Blanche’s Big Problem
The consequences of a lawyer misleading the court survive the case in which it occurs, and those consequences can be profound.
Jun 05, 2026
Between March 2023 and December 2024, Todd Blanche earned millions of dollars as Donald Trump’s personal defense lawyer in the Stormy Daniel hush-money case, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, and the election interference case. As Acting Attorney General of the United States, he’s wading through another Trump mess.
And he’s drowning.
The Fund is Dead; Long Live the Fund
On May 18, Trump’s lawyers and the Department of Justice (DOJ) created an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to settle President Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Even Senate Republicans rebelled against the prospect of using $1.776 billion in taxpayer money as Trump’s slush fund to pay January 6 insurrectionists.
To quell the uprising that was threatening Trump’s legislative agenda, Blanche met with Republicans on Capitol Hill. He made things worse as the weeklong Memorial Day break began.
Todd Blanche—who still operates as if he were Trump’s personal attorney—now has stunning legal problems of his own.
Faced with mounting pressure—from the public, congressional Republicans, and two judges who were questioning the fund’s legality—Blanche told a House committee on June 2 that the fund was not moving forward.
Some senators found comfort in Blanche’s assurances. But the same day, Trump was asked by the New York Post in a podcast interview whether he had dropped the Fund.
Trump said, “No, a court ruled against” it.
Asked again about the fund on June 3, Trump answered: “I love it. I think it’s so important.”
But the controversy over the fund’s status is diverting attention from an issue that is much more important to Trump—and a much bigger problem for Blanche: his signature on a document releasing Trump’s potential tax liabilities.
A Phony Lawsuit Leads to a Collusive Settlement
January 29, 2026: Trump filed a lawsuit against the IRS seeking $10 billion. He claimed that a former IRS contractor had illegally obtained access to and disclosed Trump’s tax returns to media outlets.
In the past, the IRS mounted aggressive defenses to similar claims. Following normal procedure, IRS attorneys prepared a 25-page memorandum outlining the flaws in Trump’s lawsuit and recommending a motion to dismiss it. But the Justice Department didn’t even enter an appearance in the case, much less seek dismissal.
Presiding US District Court Judge Kathleen Williams was concerned that there was no “actual adversity” between the parties because Trump was on both sides of the lawsuit: The president (plaintiff) controlled the IRS (defendant). She ordered Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department to address the obvious conflict of interest by May 20.
May 18: With the court deadline approaching and Blanche’s DOJ struggling internally over a response to Judge Williams’ order, Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of voluntary dismissal. Believing that she had no choice, Judge Williams entered an order dismissing the case. The court observed that “the Notice [of dismissal] does not reference any settlement or include a stipulation of settlement,” and therefore “there is no settlement of record.”
But unbeknownst to Judge Williams, there was a settlement agreement—also dated May 18. In exchange for dismissing his frivolous case, Trump’s Justice Department would create a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
May 19: Another element of the settlement agreement emerged. It gained less attention but was far more important to Trump. Without fanfare, the Justice Department revealed an addendum that contained an extraordinary release in favor of Trump and “related or affiliated individuals or parties…” from any matters “currently pending or that could be pending..." before the IRS or other federal government agencies or departments.
The IRS has been a recurring thorn in Trump’s side. In 2022, two of his organizations were found guilty of tax fraud and falsifying business records. The New York Times estimated that the addendum's release covered audits that could have cost Trump more than $100 million on just one of his properties.
When asked who came up with the terms for the settlement, Blanche denied that he had a role: “The president has outside counsel, and their counsel, the Department of Justice, not me.”
Except Blanche—and only Blanche—signed the addendum sealing the deal.
May 29: Judge Williams reacted to a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges urging her to reopen Trump’s previously dismissed case. The court concluded that it had been presented with “grievous allegations that Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed this litigation solely to avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit that ‘was collusive from the start’ and was only filed to provide the imprimatur of legality for an unlawful settlement.” She cited allegations that the IRS did not “‘even try[] to defend against Plaintiffs’ claims’ despite their active opposition to nearly identical claims in other litigation” and that “Plaintiffs’ claims were ‘clearly untimely’ and therefore untenable.”
Judge Williams ordered Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department to address allegations that they had: 1) filed a collusive suit; 2) premised the earlier dismissal notice on deception; and 3) made the court a victim of fraud.
Footnote two of the court's order focused on Blanche:
This addendum, as the non-party movants point out, may be in conflict with internal Department of Justice policies that require the Department to only enter into compromises that are "specifically limited to the immediate subject matter of the claim which was in fact compromised." The addendum was signed only by the Acting Attorney General [Todd Blanche]. (Emphasis supplied)
Blanche’s Problems Grow
Apart from Blanche’s conflict of interest problem, under DOJ policy dating to 1934, the attorney general doesn’t even have the legal authority to stop civil tax audits. And after the revelations of President Richard Nixon’s abuse of the IRS, it has been “unlawful for the President and any employee of the Executive Office of the President, among other officials, to directly or indirectly request that the IRS terminate any ongoing audit or investigation of any particular taxpayer.” (Emphasis in original)
If Judge Williams concludes that Trump’s lawyers or Justice Department attorneys deceived her in connection with the original dismissal of the case, even voiding the settlement in its entirety won’t end the matter. The consequences of a lawyer misleading the court survive the case in which it occurs, and those consequences can be profound.
The addendum gives Trump a stunning victory. And Todd Blanche—who still operates as if he were Trump’s personal attorney—now has stunning legal problems of his own.
It’s a classic Trump outcome: Trump wins; his loyalist loses.
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US Voters Are Hungry for a Country With Consequences for Corruption at the Top
A new poll finds that large majorities of voters believe corruption is a big problem across politics and government and back bold reform.
Jun 03, 2026
I’ve written that corruption is the sleeper issue of 2026. Well, it’s awake. And the issue may be bigger than I realized.
That’s the implication of a new national poll released Tuesday by the Brennan Center. The survey was conducted in late April and early May, just before the president’s attempt to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to funnel taxpayer money to his political allies.
The results are striking. More than 9 in 10 voters believe corruption is a big problem across politics and government. Large majorities view corruption as endemic and deeply embedded in government institutions, from the Supreme Court to Congress to the presidency. They are dejected about the fact that scandals continuously go without consequences and shocking revelations fail to produce reform.
Margins are overwhelming among Democrats, Republicans, and independents.
Vast majorities believe this corruption is part of why government doesn’t respond to major issues, including concerns like affordability and housing.
Most importantly, voters back bold reform. Eighty-three percent want a law that bars presidents from having conflicts of interest and holds them to stronger ethical standards. Eighty-one percent want a new federal ethics enforcer. Seventy-nine percent want a constitutional amendment that restores limits on money in elections, and other anti-corruption measures received similar levels of support.
It’s hard to find a set of proposals with a wider bipartisan appeal.
Yet there are notes here that should jar complacency. Listen carefully to voters. They define corruption broadly. Vast majorities see the spectacle of politicians catering to the interests of billionaires and big corporations as corrupt, not surprisingly. But to most Americans, wasting taxpayer dollars and even failing to respond to constituent needs are also forms of corruption.
Vast majorities believe this corruption is part of why government doesn’t respond to major issues, including concerns like affordability and housing. How do we connect these arcane government rules to people’s economic well-being? Voters are already doing so.
There are warning signs aplenty for politicians from both parties. Other polls have shown that voters think neither Democratic nor Republican politicians are better than the other on the issue.
Policymakers should understand that the public’s conception of what has gone wrong goes far deeper than super PACs or White House ballrooms or even slush funds. To them, it is a system that is fundamentally misfiring. A government that is not performing. And there is a willingness to name names and assign blame.
In some ways, these results are ominous. We often note that the 2024 election was the first time since the 1800s where the incumbent party lost the White House three times in a row (2016, 2020, 2024). This survey shows a deeply disquieted electorate, scornful of the political system and furious at its flaws. That environment created the conditions for President Donald Trump’s populist nationalism to emerge in 2016. It hasn’t gone away.
Yet this is also the kindling that can fuel new approaches, sharper critiques, and stronger solutions. If polls are to be believed, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has turned his political fortunes through a relentless and often stirring stump-speech focus on corruption.
The breadth of public unhappiness suggests a deeper moral critique. Even now, amid wrenching technological change and evaporating standards, people seem focused on an underlying core of personal responsibility.
My old boss, President Bill Clinton, often talked this way, especially when he was running for president in 1992. “The American dream that we were all raised on is a simple but powerful one,” he would say. “If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be given a chance to go as far as your God-given ability will take you.”
More recently, that ethos was given voice in Hungary by its new president, Péter Magyar. Running against the authoritarian kleptocrat Viktor Orbán, Magyar vowed that Hungary would no longer be “a country without consequences.” He pledged to oversee not just new policies but a thorough effort to clean house and to hold accountable those who had stolen from the people.
The new Brennan Center research suggests that voters here, too, are ready for a country with consequences. That will help shape the next political era—if we are ready to make it happen.
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Dell Scores Major Pentagon Contract Weeks After Trump Promoted Company
The on-paper value of the president's Dell stock holdings has soared potentially by millions since he told Americans to "go out and buy a Dell" earlier this month.
May 28, 2026
Just weeks after President Donald Trump urged Americans to "go out and buy a Dell" and months after he bought millions of dollars worth of stock in the company, the computer giant was awarded a $9.7 billion Pentagon contract.
The Department of Defense confirmed the contract with Dell Federal Systems, the government-focused arm of Dell Technologies, on Wednesday.
Euronews reported:
As part of the Core Enterprise Technology Agreement (CETA), a Pentagon-wide Microsoft licensing and software procurement framework, the company will provide and manage Microsoft software licences, cloud subscriptions and on-premises software licensing across the US military, intelligence agencies and the US Coast Guard.
The contract would have raised scrutiny regardless, given the Dell family’s proximity to Trump in his second term. CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, have pledged $6.25 billion to help fund the so-called “Trump accounts” that were part of the president's 2025 mega budget legislation, a policy that critics have described as a tax shelter for the wealthy.
This tied the Dell family fortune to Trump's political agenda. In recent months, he's also hitched it to his own personal wealth.
Follow this:First, Trump quietly buys up to $5 million of Dell stock.Then, he urges his followers to “go out and buy a Dell.”Today, his Pentagon awards a $9.7 billion deal to Dell. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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— Bill Grueskin (@bgrueskin.bsky.social) May 27, 2026 at 7:45 PM
During his frenetic burst of stock trading in the first three months of the year, Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million in Dell stock on February 10, according to financial disclosure forms, when the stock traded at $126 per share.
Months later, at a Mother's Day event on May 8, he publicly shilled for the company's products—a possible violation of White House ethics policy—and lavished praise upon the Dell family:
They've done such a job, such a job on that. They put up a lot of money, too [for Trump accounts]. Put up $6.25 billion. That's somebody and he started making computers on his bed in college and selling them because they were better than other computers.
And he just—I said, "How did you do that?" He said, "Well, I did it and I just never stopped." He just kept going.
So, go out and buy a Dell, they're great.
After the president's remarks, the value of Dell stocks surged by 14.6% to an all-time high of just under $264 before settling at just over $260 by the end of the day.
The announcement of the lucrative new Pentagon deal on Wednesday has caused the stock’s value to soar, reaching nearly $318 per share as of Thursday morning. The value was $305 per share before the announcement.
In total, the share price of Dell stock has climbed by about 155% since Trump bought it back in Feburary. Depending on how much of it he owns, that means he could have unrealized gains of between $1.55 million to $7.74 million. About 47% of those unrealized gains would have come just in the last month since he used the White House to boost Dell stock.
DELL stock chart by TradingView
Acting US Navy Chief Information Officer Barry Tanner has insisted that there was no playing favorites when Dell was selected for the contract.
But Trump, who has increased his net worth by an eye-popping $3 billion since retaking office last year, according to the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), has regularly faced accusations of lavish self-dealing.
In fact, a ProPublica report out on Thursday found that his White House adviser, Peter Navarro, personally intervened to push the Pentagon to give a $620 million loan to a startup linked to Donald Trump, Jr., out of dozens of companies that were under consideration.
Dell is also far from the first company to receive a Trump administration contract or other beneficial action after Trump purchased their stock. Earlier this month, NOTUS reported that Trump had bought shares in companies, including Palantir, Axon, and AMD, mere weeks before they were granted government contracts or regulatory relief.
Tommy Vietor, a National Security Council staffer under former President Barack Obama and now the host of the liberal Pod Save America podcast, said on social media that the Dell contract was an example of how “every day there’s another example of insider trading and corruption by Trump himself.”
Noting that Trump’s personal profit from the presidency far exceeds that of anyone else who has held the office, Tim Miller, a journalist and commentator at The Bulwark, said that a contract with such an obvious conflict of interest would be a “front-page story and weekslong scandal for anyone other than Trump.”
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