'You can't settle with yourself': Ed Markey slams President Trump over $1.7 billion settlement fund

Sen. Ed Markey took a dig at President Donald Trump on Tuesday, criticizing the Department of Justice's settlement package of more than $1.7 billion that stems from Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) earlier. The fund, labelled the 'Anti-Weaponization Fund', would go toward compensating people who believe they were treated unfairly during the Joe Biden administration.

Echoing other Democrats, Markey said that the fund was created to help Trump's "January 6 insurrectionist cronies." "You can't sue yourself, you can’t settle with yourself, and you can't hijack a victim's compensation fund and turn it into a taxpayer-funded payoff scheme for your cronies, for your buddies, for your sycophants," he said in a video on X. "Corruption at its finest," Markey captioned his post, and asserted that Senate Democrats would not allow the fund to stand 

Appearing before a House committee where he faced a barrage of tough questions, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche maintained that anyone could apply for compensation from the fund, including the January 6, 2020, insurrectionists, members of the Trump family, and the President's campaign donors.

Vice President J.D. Vance was asked about the eligibility criteria to receive compensation in a media interaction at the White House, and specifically whether or not Jan. 6 rioters would be eligible. The Vice President responded by saying that not everyone held accountable for the events of that day was guilty of that.

"We're not trying to give money to anybody who attacked a police officer... we're trying to compensate people where the book was thrown at them, they were mistreated by the legal system," he said. "We do have…in this country, innocent until proven guilty. We do have people who were accused of attacking law enforcement officers, but that doesn't mean we are going to completely ignore some of the claims that they are going to make."

Democrats, however, have not minced words in their criticism of what they labelled a "slush fund." Senator Chuck Schumer said that the President's corruption "knows no end." "His new slush fund contains a provision that there should be no prosecution or investigation of Trump or his family members on any tax matter, a get-out-of-jail-free card that he negotiated with himself. What kind of America is this?" Schumer added.

When asked about the fund by reporters, President Trump said that he wasn't aware of it. "I know very little about it. I was not involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation. But this is reimbursing people who were horribly treated," he said. "These were people who were weaponized and really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt, with corrupt people running it."