Inside Trump's Secret Plan to Fund His “Loyalty Squad”

Summary

The Tara Palmeri Show

Episode Summary: "Inside Trump's Secret Plan to Fund His ‘Loyalty Squad’"

Date: May 21, 2026
Host: Tara Palmeri
Guest: Russ Buettner (Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, The New York Times)

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Overview

In this explosive episode, Tara Palmeri goes inside the unprecedented and controversial Department of Justice “settlement” with President Donald Trump, which resulted in the creation of a $1.776 billion fund—nicknamed “1776”—that Trump can use at his discretion. Ostensibly labeled as an “anti-weaponization” fund, it's purportedly meant for individuals Trump claims have been persecuted by the government, including himself and key political allies involved in recent scandals and the January 6th attack.

Tara is joined by Russ Buettner, a leading investigative reporter on Trump’s finances, to break down the mechanics, implications, and staggering reach of this agreement, its legal murkiness, and what it means for the rule of law and future presidencies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Massive, Unprecedented “Settlement”

• Creation of the 1776 Fund: The Department of Justice, Treasury, and IRS came to a $1.776 billion agreement with Trump, which Tara describes as “a slush fund that really has no rules on it. He can use it however he wants as an anti-weaponization fund for people who have been politically persecuted by the government like himself.” (00:30)
• Branding & Symbolism: Trump brands it 1776, aligning the fund with the country’s anniversary for patriotic effect.
• Potential Recipients: Allies convicted for acts connected to Trump's presidency and the 2020 election—Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, and January 6th insurrectionists—are expected beneficiaries.

Legal and Historical Context

• How Did This Happen?
  • The case stemmed from the IRS contractor leaking 20 years of Trump’s tax returns to Russ Buettner and The New York Times.
  • The IRS believed they had grounds to win, citing similar previous cases where the IRS wasn't held liable for leaks via contractors rather than direct employees. (03:21)
  • Deadline pressure led both sides to agree rather than be forced to litigate in public.
• Audit Addendum:
  • An attached agreement means “any existing ongoing audits, and there were a couple that were important, would be dropped and…in perpetuity, he would never be audited for anything he's already filed to the IRS” (03:26).
  • This includes open issues around Trump’s historic $72.9 million tax refund and possibly over $100 million in questionable write-offs. (06:52)

Corruption, Self-Dealing, and Alarming Precedent

• Conflict of Interest:
  • The addendum was authored by Todd Blanche, Trump’s former defense attorney, now acting Attorney General. Both DOJ and Treasury Secretaries involved are openly Trump loyalists.
  • Russ: “It’s like the boss basically said, I think I've got a bunch of money coming my way. You guys work out the details. And they did it.” (11:40)
• Ordinary Citizens vs. Trump:
  • “I don't think ordinary taxpayers can get out of an audit at all…No taxpayer could say, I just went out of this audit and be let go from that.” (12:58)
  • Extraordinary privileges and legal immunity have been granted to Trump and his “affiliates,” perhaps including family and business partners.
• Precedent Concerns:
  • Danny Werfel, Biden’s IRS commissioner: “Unaware of a single precedent where the IRS has agreed in advance to permanently forego examination of previously filed tax returns for a specific person or business.” (16:51)

Political & Social Ramifications

• Transparency and Use of Funds:
  • No public tracking on the fund: “There’ll be no public reporting on who gets the money, how much and when. But that’s all going to happen in a secret.” (20:54)
  • Expectation that January 6th convicts and other loyalists will seek—and receive—compensation.
• Militia & “Loyalty Squad”:
  • Russ: “By pardoning all these people and creating this fund, it’s almost like he’s sort of deputized and fully funded a militia and incentivized them to do whatever he wants them to do.” (25:04)
  • January 6th participants are already demanding $30 million.

Can & Will This Be Reversed?

• Future Administrations:
  • Questionable enforceability: “It’s not, again, I don’t think that the enforceability of either the components of these two agreements are really knowable at this point in time. This is very untested ground that he’s on.” (26:36)
  • The fund is designed to expire at the end of Trump’s term but the IRS audit immunity is “more eternal”; a future administration may attempt to re-open cases, possibly leading to court battles.
• Congressional Reaction:
  • Senate Majority Leader John Thune and others have expressed disapproval, but action is minimal; Tara remarks on Republican silence and limp responses. (28:06)
  • “Will they at some point stand up and say, you know, no, this can’t go forward?” (22:43)

Broader Implications—The Pandora’s Box

• Executive Immunity & Corruption:
  • Host: “It creates a sort of immunity for the executive branch... now this has just created another layer of immunity. They’re basically kings. I mean, elected kings.”
  • Russ adds that there is a dire need for post-Trump reforms: “There has to be some sort of recourse, some sort of way to monitor the integrity of these kinds of things and not just rely on the President’s sense of his own integrity.” (30:43)
• “Shocking and Offensive, But Not Surprising”:
  • Russ: “We just keep getting these moments where he’s using the office for his own benefit, for nobody else’s benefit, in this case, at the taxpayer’s expense.” (32:05)

Most Corrupt Moment in Modern US History?

• Tara: “It really does feel like this is the most corrupt moment I’ve ever lived through.” (33:51)
• Russ: “Certainly not in my lifetime…”—points to the unprecedented nature of a sitting president “taking $2 billion and using it as I see fit to give to my friends who feel like they’ve been hurt by the prior administration. And then I’m going to wave with a wand away every, every action that the government takes against me.” (33:04)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|--------------------|-------| | 00:30 | Tara Palmeri | "...he's calling this slush fund... an anti weaponization fund for people who have been politically persecuted by the government like himself...Already they're demanding $30 million." | | 03:26 | Russ Buettner | "...Any audits that could have been started based on returns they had already filed would never happen in perpetuity. He would never be audited for anything he's already filed to the IRS." | | 11:40 | Russ Buettner | "...the boss basically said, I think I've got a bunch of money coming my way. You guys work out the details. And...they did it." | | 12:58 | Russ Buettner | "I don't think ordinary taxpayers can't get out of an audit at all. I think we've all seen that." | | 16:51 | Tara (on Danny Werfel quote) | "...unaware of a single precedent where the IRS has agreed in advance to permanently forego examination of previously filed tax returns for a specific person or business." | | 20:54 | Russ Buettner | "There’ll be no public reporting on who gets the money, how much and when...That’s all going to happen in a secret." | | 25:04 | Russ Buettner | "...By pardoning all these people and creating this fund, it’s almost like he’s sort of deputized and fully funded a militia and incentivized them to do whatever he wants them to do." | | 32:05 | Tara Palmeri | "I think it creates a sort of immunity for the executive branch...now this has just created another layer of immunity. They’re basically kings. I mean, elected kings." | | 33:04 | Russ Buettner | "I don’t think we’ve ever had a president who has said I’m going to take because I feel like I was done wrong by the prior administration, I’m going to take $2 billion...use it as I see fit to give it to my friends..." | | 33:51 | Tara Palmeri | "It really does feel like this is the most corrupt moment I’ve ever lived through." |

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Timestamps Breakdown

• 00:30 – Episode theme and introduction of Trump’s $1.776B “anti-weaponization” fund
• 02:38 – Russ Buettner joins the podcast
• 03:21-04:54 – Origins of the DOJ case, implications for future tax audits
• 06:52-11:15 – Trump’s historic tax audit, questionable refund, and implications of the addendum
• 12:30-14:26 – Ordinary taxpayers vs. Trump’s privileges; comparison to standard IRS procedure
• 16:13-17:18 – Sweeping language barring IRS from audits; lack of precedent
• 20:54-22:43 – Secrecy of the fund, expectations for disbursement, and possible Congressional involvement
• 24:21-25:57 – Voices of January 6th convicts; demand for millions from the fund and perception shift in law enforcement
• 26:32-28:06 – Can future administrations reverse this? Legal uncertainty and “more eternal” immunity on audit issues
• 28:50-32:58 – Congressional inaction, Trump’s history of using office for personal gain, unintended consequences
• 33:04-33:51 – Pushing past historic norms: presidential self-dealing of unprecedented magnitude
• 34:38 – Gratitude and closing remarks

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a thorough, deeply sourced investigation into the jaw-dropping details and ramifications of Trump's self-serving $1.776 billion “settlement.” It exposes the unprecedented legal maneuvers, the absence of meaningful oversight, the flagrant self-dealing, and the ominous precedent it sets for future presidents and American democracy. Tara Palmeri and Russ Buettner’s conversation is essential listening for anyone seeking to understand the current and future state of U.S. political power.

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Transcript

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[Tara Palmieri]

Welcome back to the Tara Palmieri Show. President Trump, as chief executive of this country who oversees the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, and the IRS, settled with himself this week for a whopping $1.776 billion. Branded 1776 by the Master marketer, his himself to reflect the year our country was born. We are hitting the 250th anniversary anyway. Well, he's calling this slush fund that really has no rules on it. He can use it however he wants as an anti weaponization fund for people who have been politically persecuted by the government like himself. After all, he is the ultimate victim and this could extend to anyone. People like Steve, Steve Bannon, who decided not to comply with a congressional subpoena and spend time in jail for that. Or his trade advisor, Peter Navarro, who did the same Rudy Giuliani who tried to overturn the 2020 election. And crucially, January 6th insurrectionists. That's right. Already they're demanding $30 million. These are people who are convicted and spend time in prison. Take a listen here. I have a very interesting conversation with an investigative journalist from the New York Times. He's a Pulitzer Prize winner. He has been tracking President Trump's tax returns. It's Russ Buettner. He's really been on this for a long time. Thanks so much for joining the show.

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[Russ Buettner]

Thanks for having me, Tyler.

[Tara Palmieri]

So can we talk just about the basics of this case? I know I spewed out a lot of it for our audience, but it's a lot to take in because they settled on three different points. Right. So can we walk through that? What exactly did the doj, the Department of Justice settle with Trump on.

[Russ Buettner]

So the lawsuit started with Trump's allegation that he was harmed with. When an IRS contractor leaks, myself and another colleague of mine at the New York Times, 20 years of his tax returns, we can talk about that now because that contractor has been prosecuted and sent to prison for that.

[Tara Palmieri]

Where are we right now? And why did the IRS think they could win in this suit against Trump?

[Russ Buettner]

Well, the IRS thought they had a good standing in this case to win because they prevailed in similar lawsuits by other taxpayers whose returns were leaked on the premise like this was a contractor. It wasn't an actual IRS employee that did it. And they can't be held responsible for what a contractor did. The judge in the case, as I was saying, required them to show that they were actually at conflict. They weren't both just answering to the President and carrying the President's water. They had until tomorrow to make that case. They were supposed to file briefs rather than face that day of reckoning. They just came to an agreement. Lawyers are bristling it even be called a settlement because it's not court endorsed at all, just an agreement. The President would drop his lawsuit and there would be this massive slush fund created of 1.776 appointed number billion dollars, which he can do pretty much what he wants. It's not clearly defined. And then the day after it, they added this addendum to it that any existing ongoing audits, and there were a couple that were important, would be dropped and that any audits that could be could have been started based on returns they had already filed would never happen in perpetuity. He would never be audited for anything he's already filed to the irs.

[Tara Palmieri]

That's basically a non prosecution agreement, right? I mean is that an agreement that even in the future he can't be audited?

[Russ Buettner]

It's supposed to be just for returns they've already filed. There's a lot of things we don't know about this. One of them is that if they saw this coming, it would create a sort of perverse incentive for them to rush in tax returns on some of their crypto projects, on whatever else, making pretty audacious tax claims, knowing that they were never going to be audited on those returns. So anything they got in before, I think it's May 18, they're saying they could never be audited on. That's a huge test.

[Tara Palmieri]

I want to go back to why the IRS thought they could win this case against Trump.

[Russ Buettner]

There's not a lot there. The biggest thing was, as I said, they've prevailed on other lawsuits by taxpayers whose returns were part of the same sort of leak, especially to ProPublica, and that it's not clear that the President was really harmed in any way by this. I think there's also some limitations on who can sue like that that affected this. And there was also just a straight up time deadline Trump had missed. It was filed exactly on the statute of limitations deadline in January, going back to January, I believe, 2024. The problem was, they said that was when President Trump first learned that, that his returns had been part of this leak to us. But his own attorney, Alina Haba, had been in the court months before that when this IRS contractor pled guilty to these crimes. She went outside the courthouse and said how, how horrible it was that it couldn't have been just him, that the IRS must have been in on it as a part of some retribution for Trump. So clearly people in his circle knew. So the IRS thought they had pretty good grounds on that as well, to just say he just didn't file the claim in time and it should be dismissed based on that.

[Tara Palmieri]

And what was the IRS auditing him over?

[Russ Buettner]

So that has taken a lot, right? That was a huge part of his. You remember back to the 2016 campaign, he said, I can't release my tax returns because I'm being audited. That was a red herring in itself, right? There is no, nothing that precludes you from showing people your tax returns while they're under review. But. And he never said what it was when we got his tax returns in 2020, we could see on there, there was, what it stemmed from was this massive refund that he got back in 2010 and 2011 for $72.9 million, I believe, which included interest. And that was every dime of income tax he had paid in 2005 through 2007. That was extraordinary in itself because Donald Trump typically pays almost no income taxes at all. The losses on his businesses are so large, it wipes that away. But those years were incredibly profitable years for him because it was the start of the Apprentice. And so suddenly he was receiving 10 and 20 and $30 million a year with no expenses at all from being on the show and then licensing and endorsement deals. So he had paid some income taxes in those years. He filed this, a request for a refund because he had new business losses. He said that he could use that to wipe that away. Part of that was allowed because of the 2008 Recovery act that President Obama moved through, oddly enough, and the IRS's policy is we give you the refund and then we start an audit based on what it is. So they did that. What we found out that there were two things that were central to that. One was that he had declared his investment in his casinos to be entirely worthless. That's important to the tax code video because it allows you to sort of write off all these losses you maybe haven't been able to use for years because of certain limitations, to write them off all at once. He did the same thing for his Chicago Tower, where he said, I have spent so much money building that thing and taking on so much debt that I'm never going to make any money on it. So my investment there is worthless. That allowed him to write off, we think in the neighborhood, actually, I think it was more than a billion dollars in business he like wrote off in one year. That's how he got that refund. The irs, we don't know whether they challenged the casino thing. We knew that they were looking at it and that never completed on the Chicago tower. They said, not only is that a little odd, but it looks like you've tried to declare the same losses twice in some other years. He tried to declare more losses from the Chicago tower after declaring his investment already worthless. The IRS was looking very hard at that. That dispute went on through the 2016 campaign. From what I could see in IRS records, it looked like it kind of paused during his first presidency. It came back to life afterwards. It was mentioned in the December 2022 congressional report about his tax returns. I asked Eric Trump about it again in 2024, just about two years ago this month when we were writing about the Chicago Tower audit, and he said it was still active and it was still ongoing. There's really no reason to believe it would have been resolved in the last year. So that in itself, you know, we've conservatively said that would have cost him an ex excess of $100 million if it would have gone against him, but the interests and penalties would have grown since then. It would be considerably more to that. So that was a, that was a tremendous gift. As a part of this basically agreement between two of his underlings to, to give him this incredible benefit.

[Tara Palmieri]

Okay, so let's say the audit was conducted and he had to and he lost and he owed the IRS in fines. How much would he have owed?

[Russ Buettner]

As I said, well above $100 million. It gathers every year based on certain interest rate multipliers. So big cash. And there could have been other issues by now that would have joined that as well, because typically when they find something new, they just roll it in. And that's just an incredible thing to think, that that just got wiped away without any scrutiny after being a matter that was hotly contested for 15 years.

[Tara Palmieri]

Yeah. So President Trump, just to remind everyone, as the chief executive who controls the Department of Justice, he controls the Treasury Department and the irs. So who drafted this settlement? Do we know?

[Russ Buettner]

The only name that appeared on the addendum about the audits was Todd Blanche,

[Tara Palmieri]

the acting Attorney general guy auditioning for Attorney General right now. Of course. Right.

[Russ Buettner]

Whose last job was as Donald Trump's personal defense attorn attorney. Right, right, right. It's a very, very tight relationship. And who I think more than anybody we've ever seen in that role has agreed that he just follows the President's orders, the President's definition of what is legal. He's going after the president's perceived enemies unlike anybody we've ever seen, perhaps in the Department of Justice history. And this appears to be kind of an extension of that. Yeah. So. And then it's him and the people who answer to Scott Bent, the Treasury Secretary as well. And. And also who is quite clear that he follows President Trump's directives. So, yeah, it's like the boss basically said, I think I've got a bunch of money coming my way. You guys work out the details. And. And they did it.

[Tara Palmieri]

You know, I love to include the audience in our conversation. Jesus Acosta said he loses all this money, and yet voters think he can run the economy. So how is he doing with the American economy? I think we all know how that's going. Not well. But I do want to go to the idea of ordinary taxpayers. Right. Could any ordinary taxpayer do this?

[Russ Buettner]

Wow, that is just inconceivable, isn't it? I don't think ordinary taxpayers can't get out of an audit at all. I think we've all seen that. Right. Your the basic route this should have taken is if they couldn't have come to an agreement on what the truth was, somebody has to walk across the street to a federal courthouse, either the IRS or the taxpayer, and file a lawsuit and then hash it out in public.

[Tara Palmieri]

Donald Trump, which would be very expensive because you'd have to pay lawyers to do that. So at that point, you're probably better off just settling with the irs. Right, right.

[Russ Buettner]

Well, I think you can see, you think about 15 years of his tax lawyers fighting this thing. You can see how important it was. And that it must have been very big numbers at play. And I've been told that, like, things just don't carry on that long unless the stakes are extraordinarily high for both the IRS and the taxpayer. So, yeah, no taxpayer could say, I just went out of this audit and be let go from that and the unknowable value of any future audits when Donald Trump has taken aggressive tax positions throughout his life. We were told tax positions on the Chicago tower and the casinos were very suspect. The likelihood of prevailing was not high. So it's, you know, reasonable to think that there might be other issues that he would have, would have pursued in the course of the last 15 years as well.

[Tara Palmieri]

So Biden's IRS commissioner, Danny Werfel, said that there's no venue left to challenge this. Do you think that he's right, that this is pretty much a done deal?

[Russ Buettner]

I don't know if he's talking. Is he talking about the whole, this whole $1.8 billion fund or just the addendum of the audit? That's not clear to me. We're hearing a variety of things and we've heard some of that as well. And there are people who are, you probably heard that some of the January 6th officers, two of them filed lawsuit to try to prevent the creation of this, let's just call it a slush fund. It's not clear they'll have standing to do that. It's also not clear, I think, as for the audit addendum, it's not clear that that can withstand scrutiny. What happens? It's not clear that just Todd Blanche has the authority to tell the IRS what it can and can't investigate going forward. The IRS would follow you would think, Donald Trump's directives for a couple of years, but then what happens after he leaves office? Would the next administration be bound by this dubious looking, one paragraph promise to Donald Trump or would that be, would they go ahead and pursue an audit and then deal with him in court if he alleges that he had an agreement in place that forbid them from doing that?

[Tara Palmieri]

Okay, so I just want to read this sweeping release from the doj. It says that the IRS is, quote, forever barred and precluded from pursuing examinations of Trump, quote, related or affiliated individuals and related trusts and businesses. That is like Epstein style sweeping. Non prosecution, in my opinion. Financial non prosecution.

[Russ Buettner]

I think it seems to be so sweeping, it's not even clear that it has meaning. I mean, what does affiliate affiliated people mean? What does that mean? How do you, how do you define what an affiliation is.

[Tara Palmieri]

I guess any business partners, they could argue, you know, any. Any.

[Russ Buettner]

Okay, so I think you could argue Jared Kushner.

[Tara Palmieri]

Right, Right, exactly. So maybe he could even extend it to Wyckoff. Wyckoff. Excuse me. It's.

[Russ Buettner]

Yes.

[Tara Palmieri]

Yeah.

[Russ Buettner]

Yes. I mean, certainly everybody who's attached to World Liberty Financial as main crypto organization, you would think that they could be make an argument that they're covered by that as well.

[Tara Palmieri]

Yeah. So I have the exact quote from Warfel, Danny Warfel, the former IRS commissioner for Biden. He said he was, quote, unaware of a single precedent where the IRS has agreed in advance to permanently forego examination of previously filed tax returns for a specific person or business. So this is really, you know, he's saying that. That no one has ever had this kind of arrangement granted to them.

[Russ Buettner]

It's crazy. I also think. Tara, Tara, interesting thing to me is that from what I understand about high risk audits work, if there's there this matter has been in dispute since 2011 with this very large sum that gets carried forward. Right. And it could have impact on how his future returns look. So audits that they would have started after that. They did. Weren't going to start on his returns after that until that was completed because the impact on the later returns could be so profound. So it seems there's a high likelihood that there were issues that had been raised over that decade plus that were never really looked at because they were waiting to resolve that thing from all these years ago. And all of that just disappears with the wave of Todd Blanche's pin.

[Tara Palmieri]

Take the exit, turn right into the drive thru.

[Russ Buettner]

Nope, I'm making dinner tonight.

[Tara Palmieri]

You don't have time. Josh has practice.

[Russ Buettner]

Oh, that's right.

[Tara Palmieri]

I'll just get a salad and fries.

[Russ Buettner]

No, just the salad.

[Tara Palmieri]

But salad cancels fries.

[Russ Buettner]

Salad only.

[Tara Palmieri]

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[Russ Buettner]

Hey, can I get the fries? Salad. Sorry.

[Tara Palmieri]

Learn [e-mail] Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary. Okay, so I know you have really deep sources within the irs. Did these officials feel pressure?

[Russ Buettner]

I mean, I'm not. I don't have really deep sources into the current irs. We have our reporters right now are looking in very deeply. To what? Who was in this circle? Who were the decision makers? We did have my colleague Andy Duran reported earlier this week that a Treasury high ranking treasury lawyer left and it was suspected that it was because this settlement, especially about the audits, was coming down the pike, I should say. We have lawyers telling us, don't use the word settlement. That actually means you went to a court and you settled something and the judge signed off on it. This is just a side deal. It's not a settlement at all.

[Tara Palmieri]

And quid pro quo.

[Russ Buettner]

I mean, I think it just goes to the profound uniqueness of this whole thing that people can't even figure out what word to use to. To describe it.

[Tara Palmieri]

Yeah, it hits so many different points. This $1.7 billion slush fund. You pointed out that it's unclear what he could use that money for, even though they branded it with the year of our country's birth, 1776. Right. As if it's some sort of patriotic fund for his political allies and, you know, a way to protect them from January 6th. You know, insurrectionists who have pled guilty, many of them, and serve time, could. Could get much restitution, supposedly from this fund. Maybe someone like Steve Bannon, who was in contempt of Congress, or Peter Navarro, who was his trade advisor, maybe Rudy Giuliani, who was involved in trying to overturn the results of the elections. Like, these are his political loyalists. So I'm wondering, you know, is this real? What could this, like, this slush fund, like, yes, he has the money, but, like, is he really going to use it to. To help his quote, unquote loyalists, or does he just want the perception that that's what it's for? Is it some sort of political charity for the. You know, also persecuted, but, you know, people have also be been persecuted by a weaponized government.

[Russ Buettner]

Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's pretty wide open. And one of the unique things about this is there'll be no public reporting on who gets the money, how much and when. But that's all going to happen in a secret. There will be quarterly reports filed, I think, without names or identifiers. I think they've already said they suspect the January Sixers would be eligible for large sums out of this. That's part of the reason that two of the January 6th officers have filed their. Their lawsuit. I think there are definitely going to be insiders who are going to try to get this, as you said, and Donald Trump views anybody who's on his side as done wrong, no matter what the nature has been of the crime they've been convicted of. I mean, is Steve Bannon going to get a big whack out of this? I don't know, you have to wonder what would happen if some of the law firms that the president basically extorted over the last year, right, threatened to take away their government funding because they had represented people he didn't like? Or some of the colleges that have faced being federally defunded because of they had DEI programs that they just decided are illegal without any really ever having to prove that in court. Maybe they will apply for some of this and what would happen then? And will there be people who will be denied and and then file a lawsuit to say I was wrongfully denied this and would that bring some of this out into the open? The whole document seems to a lot of people to be so sloppily put together that it could have unintended consequences that go ways they don't want it to go. What would happen if Congress stands up? Well, only Congress can really appropriate money. This is a significant amount of money. Will they at some point stand up and say, you know, no, this can't go forward. The President doesn't have the authority to do that.

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[Tara Palmieri]

you know what? Our producer, Abby, she found the J6ers and what they think they can get from this fund.

[Russ Buettner]

Number I've put in is $30 million. 21.5 million is for the wrongful imprisonment we endured. A lot.

[Tara Palmieri]

Our lives are still not the same. I don't know what kind of price you can put on that.

[Russ Buettner]

Some people are whining and saying it's not enough, and we're not even hearing numbers yet.

[Tamsen Fadal]

It's, like, surreal to me. I mean, look how angry I look.

[Russ Buettner]

Rachel Powell, a mom of Ace and

[Tara Palmieri]

a grandmother, they think they're entitled to a lot of money. That's. That's. That's for sure.

[Russ Buettner]

Those clips are really stark, aren't they? That's just amazing to hear how much law enforcement talks about setting an example that crime will not be accepted. That's part of the reason that they're there. And now we've totally flipped that upside down. Right. I think that's one of the potential outcomes of this, is that President Trump, by pardoning all these people and creating this fund, it's almost like he's sort of deputized and fully funded a militia and incentivize them to do whatever he wants them to do. Whenever he says the next election or the one after that has been unfairly taken. Right. They've been told it's, you're okay to go try to take the Capitol over. You're okay to try to stop votes from being counted. You're okay to commit acts of violence. If I'm there, you will be pardoned, and anything that happens to you, you will be reimbursed for. And here's a few million dollars up front to get you going. That's a. That's.

[Tara Palmieri]

I mean, they want $30 million. They want $30 million, these people.

[Russ Buettner]

Yeah, that's. I, I don't think there's the, you know, there's a. I've worked in courthouses before, and there's an old joke that the prisons don't have any guilty people in them. Right. Everybody in prison thinks that they've been done wrong. And as reporters, we get letters all the time from people saying, look into my case, I was done wrong, unfortunately, some of them. And that's a lot of work to untangle. But overall, I think most people who do these things think that their hearts were in the right place, and that should be enough.

[Tara Palmieri]

Yeah. Can a future administration reverse any of this.

[Russ Buettner]

Another excellent question. It's not, again, I don't think that the enforceability of either the components of these two agreements are really noble at this point in time. This is very untested ground that he's on. And I look, John Thune, the Senate majority leader, has said he does not approve of this thing that creates this gigantic fund. Would the Senate decide? At some point we have to claw back our authority over the purse. At some point we have to realize that we are a co equal branch of government. People have been waiting for that for the entirety of both Trump's terms. I don't know if that day is going to come, but is it a possibility? I don't know. If they lose the midterms, could Congress at that point, sometime early next year, decide they're going to take a look at this? But I think that's a great question. The fund itself is meant to expire when Donald Trump leaves office. So he is committed to essentially spending all the money by the end of his term. About the addendum that pertains to the audits, that is more eternal. It's conceivable that another administration could say, we're not bound by that. We're going to go ahead and start the audits that should have been started. They're still within the time limit. And, and he can sue us in court and we'll fight there for the strength and enforceability of that agreement.

[Tara Palmieri]

You know, CNN had an interesting clip on Dana Bash's show with Senator John Curtis. He's a Republican, right? And he vowed when he was elected, he's from Utah, to be an independent voice. And his rebuke of this was so limp. He was just like, it doesn't really pass the smell test. I don't really know a lot about it, though, so I don't want to weigh in. And Dana Bash was like, well, let me tell you more about it. And he's like, I don't really feel comfortable weighing in. So I don't know. I, I, I don't think that these Republican senators are going to rise up. They have. You really haven't heard a peep. You really haven't heard a peep about it.

[Russ Buettner]

You just heard John Thune say, I don't, I don't really like it. I know it's almost unimaginable. And the cumulative effect of all of this, of him showing how willing he is to abuse the power of his office for his own gain and how willing his Cabinet is, his department heads are to enable that no one's saying no is really stark. But I think like Donald Trump, you know, throughout his business career was not good at looking at long term consequences. He did things that feel good in the moment, in that day that make him feel like somebody who's gotten the better of him, didn't get the better of him, or he's somehow shown them the truth. Like this could have unintended consequences. Like this could be grounds for impeachment next year if Congress does flip on some level, I think like you think back to that Ukraine phone call. Was there ever a political advisor in history who would say, yeah, go ahead and call the leader of another country and tell them you'll only give them the defense budget that's been committed if they announce that they're investigating your political opponent. I don't think any operative would say that's a good idea, boss, make that phone call. They would say, do not do that. You're bringing a possible impeachment hearing on yourself. There's going, going to be investigations of that. It's going to get out, don't do it. But Donald Trump does those things kind of over and over again and then when the sort of inevitable happens, he just says he's being unfairly persecuted and goes on from that. But so I, I think there could be long, longer term negative consequences that they're just not thinking through because they're just following his directives of the day.

[Tara Palmieri]

Yeah. So I feel like we have open Pandora's box right now. Future presidents could make the argument that they could abuse this power as well. They could settle enforcement actions against themselves.

[Russ Buettner]

Yeah. I mean, look, I think we've come to realize how much of how lightly regulated the office of the presidency is, that it has been imbued with great power and the belief that every president is going to be there, is going to be thinking bigger than themselves, that they're going to use judgment. That's what's good for the country, what's good for the office, what's good for our citizens. And so there's a lot of discretion that's allowed of this. I think if we get through all this, there's going to have to be a wave of regulations and re examinations of those concepts and have to be some sort of guardrails put up to prevent future presidents from doing a lot of the things he's done, including something like this. There has to be some sort of recourse, some sort of way to monitor the integrity of these kinds of things and not just rely on the President's sense of his own integrity.

[Tara Palmieri]

Yeah. I think it creates a sort of immunity for the executive branch that already feels like it has a pretty broad set of like it's already difficult enough to prosecute a president and now this has just created another layer of immunity. They're basically kings. I mean, elected kings. Right.

[Russ Buettner]

I mean, and you look back, he started from the premise of the, the Supreme Court gave him immunity basically from anything he does in the course of his work. Right. They said you couldn't really be prosecuted from that afterwards. That was a sort of new interpretation and that's a heck of a starting point. And I think we're just extending down that road. And I don't think we can see each one of these things is somehow shocking and offensive, but not surprising. We just keep getting these moments where he's using the office for his own benefit, for nobody else's benefit in this case, at the taxpayer's expense. And whatever sort of like benefit law enforcement gets from setting the example of people who don't follow the law, he's taking all that away just for his own personal gain. And I just, we just, I don't know what the end of that is going to look like.

[Tara Palmieri]

Is this the most serious self dealing case we've ever seen? Feels like it a little bit, yeah.

[Russ Buettner]

I'm not a historian, but I can't like, not certainly not in my lifetime. Certainly there's nobody, there are no history. I didn't see John Meacham on television saying, oh no, this happened in 1835. This is like, I don't think we've ever had a president who has said I'm going to take, because I feel like I was done wrong by the prior administration. I'm going to take $2 billion, even in inflation and just the $2 billion from 1835, use it as I see fit to give it to my friends who feel like they've been hurt by the prior administration. And then I'm going to wave with a wand away every, every action that the government takes against me. That's really, I, there's, that's just unimaginable that it ever happened before.

[Tara Palmieri]

It really does feel like this is the most corrupt moment I've ever lived through. And I, you know, like, I'm not, I'm not a historian either, but this feels like an extreme amount of corruption. Russ, thank you for joining the show. Thank you for your excellent investigative reporting. Russ is a Pulitzer Prize winner. He is an incredible investigative reporter for the New York Times. We're so glad that you're here and that you've stayed on this story for so many years. It takes a lot of time. It's a small. It's a slow churn with investigative reporting. You can't always put things out every single day. But we appreciate your dedication to it and the fact that the Times is still, you know, employing investigative reporters where a lot of newsrooms are just slashing them first.

[Russ Buettner]

Yeah. Thank you for that. That's very kind of you. And, yes, I do. I am grateful to the Times for its continued investment and support in this kind of work.

[Tara Palmieri]

Yeah. And of course, you can support my independent journalism at the red letter and on substack by just hitting that subscribe button. You become a paid subscriber. You can support my investigative journalism and my pursuit of. Of, you know, really exposing what is going on in this world so you have a better way of understanding it. I have no shadowy backers or funders. It's just me to you. And I can only keep doing this with your help. So consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you again, and I hope to have you back on the show. And maybe there'll be an update soon.

[Russ Buettner]

Maybe anytime. Thank you very much.

[Tara Palmieri]

That was another episode of the Tower Palmieri Show. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like the show, please subscribe, rate, share, follow, tell all of your friends about it. That's how you keep me in business. This is truly independent. No shadowy backers, no super PACs, just fiercely independent journalism funded by you. So if you want my exclusive content straight to your inbox, go to tarapalmary.com that's T A R A P A L M E R I dot com. Become a paid subscriber. You can get all of my exclusive independent investigative journalism right there. I want to thank my producer, Dan Schiffmacher, Abby Baker, who produces books, does social media, Dan Rosen, my manager, and Adam Stewart on the graphics. Oh, and Danelle Garcia, who helped book this show. See you again soon.

[Tamsen Fadal]

Hi, I'm Tamsen Fadal, journalist and author of how to Menopause and host of the Tamsen Show, a weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond. We cover it all, from dating to divorce, aging to adhd, sleep to sex, brain health to body fat, and even how perimenopause can affect your relationships. And trust me, it can. Each week I sit down with doctors, experts and leaders in longevity for unfiltered conversations packed with advice on everything from home hormones to happiness, and of course, how to stay sane during what can be. Well, let's face it, a pretty chaotic chapter of life. Think of us as your midlife survival guide. New episodes released every Wednesday. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.