There is an opportunity here to make Trump’s taxes the focus. In fact, this is a huge gift from Todd Blanche.
Trump’s former personal attorney is now Acting Attorney General, and he signed an order that reportedly purports to release Trump, his family, trusts, companies, and affiliated entities from federal claims and tax examinations tied to pre-settlement returns.
That is not a normal settlement. If everything is on the up and up, a little conflict-of-interest investigation should not be a cause for concern.
The question Congress needs to ask is simple: did Blanche ever advise Trump, the Trump Organization, his family, his trusts, or affiliated companies on any tax, financial, records, or disclosure matters now covered by this release?
Because if he did, then this is not just about protecting Trump. Blanche may have used public office to shield a former client and possibly shield his own prior legal work from scrutiny.
And attorney-client privilege is not a magic invisibility cloak. The privilege belongs to the client, not the lawyer. Blanche cannot use Trump’s privilege as his personal escape hatch. If subpoenaed, that privilege has to be asserted and tested. And if legal advice was used to commit, conceal, or further a crime or fraud, the crime-fraud exception can pierce it.
Now here is the self-defeating friction point: the settlement says Trump and the named plaintiffs receive no monetary payment and no damages. It also says the Anti-Weaponization Fund is not taxable to them because they receive no economic benefit from the settlement.
But the same settlement incorporates Attorney General orders that can establish “terms” and “waivers.” If one of those incorporated orders says Trump and his affiliated universe can never be audited or examined again for pre-settlement tax returns, how is that not something of value?
An audit shield is not nothing. It can protect against tax liability, penalties, interest, fraud exposure, legal fees, and future government scrutiny. That is value.
So Congress has a bipartisan lane here. This is not left versus right. No president, of either party, should be able to receive a private tax shield through a settlement handled by his own former lawyer.
Congress should demand the recusal memos, ethics waivers, drafts of the order, communications with Trump’s lawyers, IRS/Treasury legal opinions, and any list of tax examinations this order would block.
A hidden conflict is not just bad optics. If someone failed to disclose or recuse while using federal power to obstruct scrutiny, that can become evidence of a crime.
And the settlement itself says nothing in it can require officials to act inconsistently with federal law. So if this audit shield violates federal tax law, IRS independence, or anti-interference rules, then the document may contain the seeds of its own collapse.