What to know about Trump’s immunity from IRS after Todd Blanche’s attorney-general confirmation hearing
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Todd Blanche testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination to be attorney-general in Washington, DC, on July 15.
PHOTO: AFP
Andrew Duehren
WASHINGTON – A central issue in the confirmation hearing of Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney-general, on July 15 was the extraordinary protection from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigations he granted President Donald Trump.
That immunity was part of a deal orchestrated by the US Justice Department to end the president’s lawsuit against the IRS. The other part of that deal, a US$1.8 billion (S$2.3 billion) fund aimed at paying political allies of Trump, set off a political firestorm on Capitol Hill, where many Republicans demanded its end. Blanche has since said that the so-called “anti-weaponisation” fund is dead.
