But no matter! Trump demands<\/a> $10 billion because the Times wrote mean stuff about his finances. Plus, he and his company had to \u201cdefend against a meritless civil suit brought by the New York Attorney General based on wrongful interpretation of unauthorized disclosures of their confidential tax returns and related tax information.\u201d KA-CHING!<\/p>\n This puts Secretary Bessent in an awkward position \u2014 or, two awkward positions to be exact, since he took over as acting Commissioner of the IRS after Trump pushed out Billy Long, his own pick to lead the agency. If Trump \u201cwins\u201d his \u201clawsuit,\u201d then the taxpayers will be on the hook for the money. Even as Americans are coughing up<\/a> thousands of dollars per household for increased health insurance premiums<\/a> and those \u201cnon-inflationary\u201d tariffs<\/a>, they\u2019ll be asked to hand the president an eleven-figure check.<\/p>\n It\u2019s breathtakingly corrupt, and so Bessent has figured out a way to distance himself from the looting of his agency: He\u2019s blaming Pam Bondi.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a Justice Department matter. They represent Treasury,\u201d he sneered in response to questioning by Senator Ruben Gallego about the glaring conflict of interest. <\/p>\n GALLEGO: Can the president fire you?BESSENT: He canGALLEGO: Isn’t it a conflict of interest for you to making these decisions and the president has full power?BESSENT: I am not part of the decisionGALLEGO: Well you hit ‘send’ on the wire transfer. You’re plundering US taxpayer dollars<\/p>\n \u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-02-05T17:00:57.612Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n So much for the unitary executive theory! Apparently the DOJ is running the show, and Treasury is just along for the ride. The IRS has no institutional interest or say in the litigation. If the Attorney General decides not to defend against a patently frivolous lawsuit, it\u2019s got nothing to do with him<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe act as paymaster,\u201d Bessent insisted, conveniently dumping responsibility for the plunder of his agency in Bondi\u2019s lap. <\/p>\n When hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin sued the Treasury over the leak of his tax documents \u2014\u00a0in timely fashion! \u2014 the DOJ mounted a robust defense. But if the Bondi decides to \u201close\u201d this lawsuit, that\u2019s on her. Bessent is more like a cash register, really, or an AI chatbot being ordered to generate CSAM. It\u2019s user error!<\/p>\n GALLEGO: Let’s say Trump wins that lawsuit. Where would that $10 billion come from?BESSENT: It would come from TreasuryGALLEGO: So, taxpayers?BESSENT: Yes. Part of the 44,000 whose returns were leakedGALLEGO: They’re not suing<\/p>\n \u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-02-05T16:53:16.480Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n It\u2019s a neat trick! Someone should hurry up and tell DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that she has to do whatever the DOJ lawyers tell her because they\u2019re the ones really in charge. That would save those poor, harried AUSAs from having to explain to judges<\/a> why ICE refuses to comply with court orders.<\/p>\n Whether it saves Bessent from being held responsible for the coming wealth transfer from American taxpayers to the president\u2019s bloated pockets remains to be seen<\/p>\n Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The post Bessent Blames Bondi For Trump Bribe<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Scott Bessent has to pretend to believe a lot of nonsense, but Donald Trump\u2019s lawsuit against the IRS is really making the Treasury Secretary work for it. <\/p>\n Last week, the president dropped his latest trollsuit<\/a>, this time targeting the government over the leak of his tax returns in 2020 by Charles Littlejohn, a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton. The New York Times penned dozens of stories about those returns before the 2020 election, but Trump claims not to have learned about it until January of 2024, when Littlejohn was sentenced. This is convenient, since any civil suit over wrongful disclosure of tax information must be filed within two years. Less convenient is the fact that Trump\u2019s own lawyer Alina Habba appeared at Littlejohn\u2019s plea hearing<\/a> on October 12, 2023 \u201con behalf of President Trump who was a victim, as we just heard, of this atrocity.\u201d<\/p>\n But no matter! Trump demands<\/a> $10 billion because the Times wrote mean stuff about his finances. Plus, he and his company had to \u201cdefend against a meritless civil suit brought by the New York Attorney General based on wrongful interpretation of unauthorized disclosures of their confidential tax returns and related tax information.\u201d KA-CHING!<\/p>\n This puts Secretary Bessent in an awkward position \u2014 or, two awkward positions to be exact, since he took over as acting Commissioner of the IRS after Trump pushed out Billy Long, his own pick to lead the agency. If Trump \u201cwins\u201d his \u201clawsuit,\u201d then the taxpayers will be on the hook for the money. Even as Americans are coughing up<\/a> thousands of dollars per household for increased health insurance premiums<\/a> and those \u201cnon-inflationary\u201d tariffs<\/a>, they\u2019ll be asked to hand the president an eleven-figure check.<\/p>\n It\u2019s breathtakingly corrupt, and so Bessent has figured out a way to distance himself from the looting of his agency: He\u2019s blaming Pam Bondi.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a Justice Department matter. They represent Treasury,\u201d he sneered in response to questioning by Senator Ruben Gallego about the glaring conflict of interest. <\/p>\n So much for the unitary executive theory! Apparently the DOJ is running the show, and Treasury is just along for the ride. The IRS has no institutional interest or say in the litigation. If the Attorney General decides not to defend against a patently frivolous lawsuit, it\u2019s got nothing to do with him<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe act as paymaster,\u201d Bessent insisted, conveniently dumping responsibility for the plunder of his agency in Bondi\u2019s lap. <\/p>\n When hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin sued the Treasury over the leak of his tax documents \u2014\u00a0in timely fashion! \u2014 the DOJ mounted a robust defense. But if the Bondi decides to \u201close\u201d this lawsuit, that\u2019s on her. Bessent is more like a cash register, really, or an AI chatbot being ordered to generate CSAM. It\u2019s user error!<\/p>\n It\u2019s a neat trick! Someone should hurry up and tell DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that she has to do whatever the DOJ lawyers tell her because they\u2019re the ones really in charge. That would save those poor, harried AUSAs from having to explain to judges<\/a> why ICE refuses to comply with court orders.<\/p>\n Whether it saves Bessent from being held responsible for the coming wealth transfer from American taxpayers to the president\u2019s bloated pockets remains to be seen<\/p>\n Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Scott Bessent has to pretend to believe a lot of nonsense, but Donald Trump\u2019s lawsuit against the IRS is really making the Treasury Secretary work for it. Last week, the president dropped his latest trollsuit, this time targeting the government over the leak of his tax returns in 2020 by Charles Littlejohn, a contractor for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":143516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/law-and-chaos-logo-liz-dye-300x153-snMxR0.jpg?fit=300%2C153&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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