Legal scholar reveals why Trump’s 'bogus' IRS immunity will backfire on him

President Donald Trump and his family were supposedly granted an unprecedented tax immunity in a controversial recent settlement, but as one legal scholar explained for The Hill, this "bogus" pledge is already primed to backfire on him once a new president is in power.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced that it would be settling Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, both by setting up a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, and by granting immunity from all future claims, audits or charges from the IRS. Writing for The Hill on Wednesday, Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, explained that the situation is worse and more lawless than most reports currently indicate, but also argued that this immunity pledge is highly likely to fall apart once Trump leaves office.

As she explained, Trump lacks the authority to have his own government grant him this sort of immunity, and it would only take a future administration that is willing to call him on his bluff in order for it to begin falling apart.

"Trump’s self-serving deal for IRS immunity might not hold up in the long run," Wehle wrote. "The real question right now is not whether Trump has the constitutional authority to grant himself tax immunity and extend it to his sons and his business (he doesn’t), but whether voters will one day elect an administration willing to bring cases ostensibly covered by the addendum."

She continued: "If that happens, Trump’s defense team would undoubtedly seek to have them thrown out under the terms of the addendum. In response, the government would argue that the addendum should be given no weight because Trump had no legal authority to grant himself such immunity in the first place. The whole thing is bogus, so any attempt to use it as a valid legal defense is bogus, too."

Wehle also noted that the way in which Trump's original suit was set to play out should give "rule-of-law Americans comfort that the courts are still functioning in the U.S."

"Judges have a way of sniffing out these sorts of shenanigans," she explained. "In Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit giving rise to these 'agreements,' the statute of limitations had run and the judge already signaled that there was no live controversy because Trump was suing himself as president. His lawyers withdrew the case before she could rule."

For now, she concluded, the only thing voters can do to counteract this sham immunity is to elect new leaders willing to push back against them.

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