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309: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Trump’s Slush Fund, But Were Afraid To Ask.
00:27:34
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- [00:04]
Joyce Vance
Welcome to this episode of Sisters sidebar with Jill Wine Banks and me, Joyce Vance. To keep up with the show, subscribe and don't forget to like and hit the bell so you can make sure you get notified of new episodes. If you have a question for us, please email us@sistersinlawolitikon.com or you can also tag us on social media using Sisters in Law. But don't just type your questions. This is our favorite part. Your voices are important and we want to hear them. You can email us a voice memo using one of your notes apps, and then we can play your question on the show. So let's get started. Hello, ladies. Thanks for all you do. My question is about the $1.776 billion slush fund TRUMP can use to compensate people who have been so called harmed by the previous Democratic administration. Why can't this money also be used to compensate people who have been hurt by the Republican Trump administration? After all, this money belongs to all of us. Marianne from New York. Well, Marianne, this is a great question, and it's one that I think it's worth working through, because our logical instinct is to think, well, maybe we can compensate for what Trump is doing by turning it into a fund that could compensate Democrats who have been victims of weaponization. But I think we need to resist that temptation. And the way I would answer that is to say this is an illegal allocation of money. Congress has the power of the purse, and frankly, a president just can't do this. And so we can't sort of make that wrong.
- [01:51]
Jill Wine Banks
Right.
- [01:51]
Joyce Vance
By expanding the universe of people who. Who would benefit from it. You know, it's interesting to note, of course, that in Trump's world, the way he envisions this fund working is very specific. Right. He actually limits its application to only people who are MAGA supporters who were supposedly harmed by a weaponized Biden Justice Department. But the important takeaway here is in the final sentence of your question, this money does belong to all of us. The Constitution says that only Congress can spend it. Donald Trump doesn't get to do it. And this relates to a question that Barb answered during our show last Friday, where she said that really, the best solution to this whole mess would be to have Congress pass a new law that says, and the president cannot use the Justice Department settlement fund as his own personal slush fund for rewarding his followers. I think that's the solution that we need here. Jill, there's a question for you from Mitch, and this is a kind of question that I absolutely Love asking for advice for future lawyers. And so the question he asks is, what are the best internship ideas for a college student considering law school? Does it have to be a firm? And then there's a little gloss to the question from Jesse who says, when did you first know that you wanted to enter the legal field?
- [03:23]
Jill Wine Banks
So those are really interesting questions to me and I hope will be instructive for anyone considering law school. I didn't know I wanted to be a lawyer when I went to law school. I didn't know I wanted to be a lawyer until probably my third year of law school. And that was after taking a year leave of absence and working in a journalistic role, which was my original goal was to use law to. To get a better job in journalism, reporting on either trials or foreign affairs or something really real where law school might make an editor think that I was more qualified to be a journalist. And I think I didn't know, but had an open mind when I took a course in trial practice. And because of moot court in the first year, I realized I really liked advocacy. And one of the first internships I had was, you know, in between my law school years, I worked in the Bronx in court as a public defender. As not public defender, but helping the public defenders. And I loved what I saw in terms of interviewing witnesses and presenting the evidence. And so I think that's when I first started thinking this could be really fun. So in terms of what, you know, what internships you might want to do if you're in college or even in law school, I think anything is good experience as a potential prosecutor. Working in a law firm is certainly one way, but a lot of people work in a law firm for the summer and go like, I never want to be in private practice in a big law firm. So you might want to do something like in the public defender's office or in the ACLU or any other cause related organization that takes on legal cases, you can get great experience and great exposure. I actually worked also for the Cook County Public Aid department doing basically social work. But it showed me a lot about what is legally allowed and not allowed and about the questions that patients in a public hospital are asked. And so almost anything can really provide you with some good experience for going on. Follow your heart, follow your interests, and, and you will find the right thing. What kind of internships did you do, Joyce?
- [05:45]
Joyce Vance
You know, so I actually did sort of hardcore law stuff. I interned for the American Society for International Law while I was in college and I was sort of hooked in that moment. I was probably hooked a long time before then because my mom was really involved in social justice work and protest work. And some of my earliest memories are going out to protests with my mom and also working on campaigns. And so there was this theme in my childhood that was never explicit but that I see now which said that the path forward is through the law. And that makes me think that the best internships, like you say, may not be in firms. It may be following your passions, your interests, and just doing whatever kind of work interests you and then maybe understand, understanding how the law influences it. You know, my daughter, who I've mentioned a couple of times, is a climate scientist and works with food security and other issues, will is not going to law school, I hope won't go to law school. We have too many lawyers in the family. But she has started talking a lot about how some of the work that they do requires people who are lawyers who understand how to engage with state and local government to get laws passed. And just there's, there's a lot of law that permeates everything that you do. I sometimes think it would be great to, you know, not want to be a lawyer and practice law, but to have a law degree to help you understand how to make your business better or if you're the director of a museum, how to better acquire collections and avoid, you know, tax consequences or whatever it is. It really does influence pervasively our society.
- [07:33]
Jill Wine Banks
I have a friend who is a very successful venture capitalist and decided to get a law degree, not a JD but a Master's from University of California, one of the UC campuses, to help him in his business to understand some of the things like that. And I think, you know, cause related obviously anything that you're interested in, it could be Planned Parenthood, it could be Emily's List where you learn about policy decisions and campaigning. I just think there's so many things that you can do in college or in law school that will enrich your experience and let you know whether you're following the right path. Whether it be big firms, as your question addressed, or something else.
- [08:31]
Joyce Vance
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- [09:05]
Jill Wine Banks
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- [09:35]
Joyce Vance
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- [10:22]
Jill Wine Banks
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- [11:30]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, so this is a great question. You know, as a U.S. attorney, I actually had two federal prisons that were in my district. One was Talladega, which is a men's facility, and then the other was Aliceville, a woman's prison that was actually opened while I was the U.S. attorney. And we work very closely with the wardens in both of those prisons. You know, our federal prisons are a better environment than state prisons, and that's putting it mildly in Alabama, where I initiated a challenge on constitutional grounds to conditions in the state prisons. Federal prisons, still not pleasant places. Nobody wants to go there, but the conditions are at least constitutionally sufficient and something that we tried to do to help our partners in the federal prisons because we wanted them to have a good relationship with us so that we could come in to talk with their inmates about reentry and about getting identification and having a reentry plan before they came back to our community. We helped them by prosecuting cases that mattered to them, to help them to maintain order inside of the prison. And so that basically came down to assaults on prison guards, which took all sorts of different forms, as you can imagine, Everything from flinging whatever they could find that was at hand at the guards to the rare violent assaults. And there was no difference, quite frankly, between prosecuting those cases and prosecuting an assault on the. We used the same statute that we would have used. We applied the same standards evaluating whether there was sufficient evidence to take the case to the grand jury. And so a confined set of conditions, a much more limited scope of crimes, but really very much the same as anything that we would do for anyone.
- [13:24]
Jill Wine Banks
You know, I hadn't thought of this until listening to you, but I had one case. Well, first of all, let me say, as a federal prosecutor, I never visited anyone in jail. If I needed to interview someone, they were brought to me. But when I was deputy attorney general, Solicitor general of Illinois, I did visit a prison by design. I just wanted to see what it was like. And it was completely different than anything I had ever envisioned. And I met some prisoners, had a conversation with someone, and I said to the person showing me around, oh, he seems like such an interesting person. What did he do? Well, he had killed an entire family. And I had just had a conversation with him, not behind bars. He was in the open yard. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this is so amazing. But I actually did have an attack on a prison guard. And this was Bill Friedkin, who's a very famous director, was trying to get someone out of jail because he was very young when he committed his crime. But he was only functioning when he took his medicine, which he would not take, except that he was forced to take them in the prison system. And so I had to defend why he was being kept. He was the longest serving prisoner in Illinois history. And I was defending, you know, keeping him behind bars. And it was an attack on a prison guard using the only thing he had, which was he spilled hot coffee, threw it in his face through the bars, and it was treated. You know, he just was not allowed to leave jail. I won that case. But, yeah, that was. It was sort of interesting, but the rules were exactly the same.
- [15:12]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, well, Jill, there's a great question for you. Also, something that talks about this slush fund that Donald Trump is trying to create for himself.
- [15:22]
Jill Wine Banks
Hi, Sisters in Law, this is Adam from Lexington, Massachusetts. I have a question about this settlement that was announced from Acting Attorney General Blanche. Can the next attorney general, whether it's the next confirmed attorney general or the next Democratic attorney general, rescind this? Is this really something that has staying power all the way until forever? Thank you, Adam, for your question and for taking the time to record it. We love hearing your voice. And as Joyce said earlier in the show, this is not a legal use of taxpayer money and it should not be allowed. And Congress should stand up to their power of the person, stop its use for this. But I will say that it is self limiting because the way it is set up, it expires just before the inauguration of the next president. So it will not be able to be abolished by the next attorney general or anyone else because it will have expired in December of 2028. So that's the answer to your question. Joyce, David has another audio question that he'd like you to answer. Hello, Sisters in Law, this is David from Hershey, Pennsylvania. And in light of the news about a potential $1.7 billion settlement between Trump and the Justice Department and the IRS, is there anything that we as American taxpayers can do en masse, like a class action lawsuit? Thank you.
- [17:02]
Joyce Vance
You know, I appreciate our listeners. FOCUS on this slush fund. I think this is the most important question that's arising in democracy right now. It's both the slush fund and Trump's effort to generate forgiveness for himself and his family from any liabilities that they might have to the government, like maybe some leftover debt due to tax audits. And so it's entirely appropriate for us to spend a lot of time on it. And this question has a different focus, which I think is important because the question really asks what can we do about it? Could we, for instance, file a taxpayers lawsuit? And unfortunately, the court has excluded on standing grounds that form of lawsuit. But there are of plenty, plenty of other lawsuits that have been launched by people who are interested in protecting democracy. And so last Friday, one of those lawsuits actually got across the first hurdle. This is a lawsuit that was brought by a former prosecutor named Andrew Floyd, who handled some of the January 6th cases in the U.S. attorney's offices. And his lawsuit, which was brought in the Eastern District of Virginia, has now sustained the first temporary injunction that keeps the slush fund from going into effect. The judge is Lennie Brinkma she became a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia the same year that I graduated from law School in 1985. She later becomes a federal district court judge. I point that timeline out just to say this is someone who is highly respected, extremely experienced. You know, this is not someone who had a deer in the headlights moment when this case showed up on her docket. And I feel pretty good about the fact that her decision to enter a preliminary injunction suggests that after she holds her mid June hearing, this could be an injunction that goes on for a longer period of time. That I think is the path forward, David, on these cases. And there are, I have now lost track, I want to say, four other lawsuits challenging the slush fund. There will be more. Last week a number of retired federal judges also filed a brief asking the original judge who dismissed the case after the government made that motion to dismiss it, asking her to reopen it, saying, you know, Judge, you didn't know at the time you dismissed the case, but now it's clear the government was trying to perpetrate a fraud on the court. So lots of interesting future developments on this one before the first dollar gets paid out.
- [19:47]
Jill Wine Banks
I think it's going to be interesting, Joyce, to see what happens with these lawsuits and the issue of standing. I know in our main episode of Sisters in Law, hashtag Sisters in Law, Barb was questioning whether there will be standing for anyone. And taxpayer lawsuits are particularly disfavored. There's AN I think 1923 decision that says that you have a de minimis interest in the amount of money that might be used wrongfully. As a taxpayer, you don't have a enough skin in the game. But I think there are some of these others that they really do have a more legitimate question. But I still think the best way is either legislation or something. I suggested on another episode of our podcast which was that someone like James Comey file for reimbursement for the weaponization he has been subjected to. He will be denied and then he has legitimate grounds to challenge the legitimacy of this process. And I think that's still a good idea.
- [20:51]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, I gotta say I like those lawsuits less than a lot of people do. I think you're in the majority of people who think that that's a good way to go forward. I'm just so opposed to the notion of this slush fund at all. And I'm hoping, you know, I, I think that Judge Brinkham is ruling suggests that Andrew has standing taxpayer lawsuits. I know that they're really attractive, but that's Opening a can of worms, right? Because if tax taxpayers can sue, the next thing that we're going to see is a whole slew of taxpayer lawsuits challenging all sorts of medical procedures that are covered by Medicaid and Medicare, goodbye to abortions for women who are miscarrying in emergency rooms and just a whole bunch of horribles. So I'm grateful for the clever lawyers who are coming up with these good standing theories. Jill, I think we've got time for one last question. This one comes from Parkin in Ridgeway, South Carolina. But it's not a question about gerrymandering. Instead, Parkin asks, when Trump engages in insider trading, is there an automatic self pardon? And I think this is obviously a reference to the reporting that we've seen over the last week about Donald Trump's trades, family trades, I mean, you know, open kleptocracy. Right. So how do you, how do you look at this?
- [22:08]
Jill Wine Banks
I mean, this has been a week that is just unbelievable in terms of what is going on and being publicly lauded. I mean, okay, I'm buying stock now. Let's, hey, everybody, this is a great company. You should buy stock in it. It's unbelievable how much money Donald Trump and his family have made. And I think we have to listen to this question carefully because let me just read the exact words. When Trump engages in insider trading, first of all, stop. And let's think about that. We're acknowledging the President of the United States is doing this. That to me is horrifying.
- [22:45]
Joyce Vance
I mean, we should say we don't know for certain that he's doing that. There is certainly reason to investigate. I try to never prejudge, but I would say that there would be a reasonable basis to investigate.
- [22:59]
Jill Wine Banks
I would say there is more than a reasonable basis. And I agree we shouldn't prejudge. It needs full exploration. But on the public record, it seems pretty obvious that that's not a ridiculous statement to have made when he engages in. Exactly. And then the question ends with is there an automatic self pardon? Again, why should we even be thinking about the fact that self pardon, self pardon is, in my view, not constitutionally permissible. So we shouldn't be thinking that it would happen. But there are so many things that Donald Trump has done that I think are unconstitutional, illegal and that he has gotten away with that. It's not a ridiculous question to ask. And the answer is I don't know that what he will get away with. I don't think he will self pardon because it is clearly not allowable. But I think that he will somehow have immunity for this. The courts have given him immunity for anything he does that are official acts. Clearly, his trading is not an official act. It should not be covered by the Supreme Court's immunity decision. But this is not a court that I can trust or predict what will happen. So I worry about it. And I think, Parkin, you are right to worry about this.
- [24:22]
Joyce Vance
You know, I worry about this, too. But, Jill, what I'm looking at, because I think you're right, Right. Presidential immunity for criminal prosecution is only for public official act. And your private stock trades are clearly not presidential act. But now Trump has this little side agreement, you know, this little hustle that he did to settle Trump versus irs, which was really Trump versus Trump, which says that the government can't ever come after him or family members. I don't think, frankly, that that agreement is worth the. The paper that it's written on. It was not a legitimate adversarial case. That's the first, you know, sort of fatal flaw in it. And so I wonder, you know, we've all held out hope so many times that there was accountability for this president. But I believe here he might think that he has protected himself, but that might be far from the case. And the clock is ticking. Right. It's 2026. There's an election in 2028. We could be looking at a whole new Justice Department, one that actually believes presidents should have to follow the law.
- [25:36]
Jill Wine Banks
Right. And I agree with you. I do not think, by the way, that the side agreement he has bars prosecution forever. It bars prosecution of past wrongs. But the trades he made are after the date of that, the trades that we're talking about now. And so I think that a new attorney general could institute an investigation of any monies he made from the date of that horrendous slush fund agreement and the side agreement to not prosecute him for past offenses of the tax code and that he could get indicted. And I think that's as it should be.
- [26:14]
Joyce Vance
But your team slush fund agreement isn't enforceable. Along with me, right? Yeah.
- [26:19]
Jill Wine Banks
Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for listening to Sister sidebar with Joyce Vance and me, Jill Wine Banks keep sending us your questions. We love to get them. We love hearing your voice. So if you send a voice memo, we will play your voice on the show. Otherwise, we will read your questions. And we want to make sure that you stay up with our questions and answers and that you will listen to all our episodes. Follow Sisters sidebar and Sisters in Law wherever you listen to your podcasts, please give us a five star review so that others will find the show as well. And please show some love to this week's sponsor, IQ Bar. The link is in our show notes and they help support this show, so we want you to support them. Don't forget to pick up some merch from politicon.com merch and we'll look forward to seeing you every single week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Wednesdays for Sisters Sidebar and Saturdays for Hashtag Sisters in Law. Thanks for being with us.