Former federal prosecutor and MS NOW legal analyst Andrew Weissmann slammed Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund on Thursday’s “The Briefing,” telling guest host Michael Steele that “every single taxpayer is being robbed” by the administration.
The author of the newly published “Liar’s Kingdom: How to Stop Trump’s Deceit and Save America” said that the nearly $1.8 billion that Trump’s Department of Justice could dole out to those who claim to be victims of the “weaponization” of government is money that belongs to the American people, adding that it was “total theft.”
Weissmann, who served as chief of the Fraud Section of the Justice Department during the Obama administration, also told Steele he takes issue with the arrangement, the result of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, being referred to as a “settlement.”
“A settled agreement is when you have two parties who are adverse to each other and they have different views, and the parties get together and they say, ‘OK, you have an argument, I have an argument,’ and you sort of work out what the agreement should be,” he explained. “Donald Trump, as he himself said, is on both sides of this; he is settling with himself.”
“The lawsuit was a fig leaf,” he added. “I understand why people are concerned about how the money would be spent, but I really think it’s important for people to focus on this: The money should never be used at all in the first place.”
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While Weissmann said that every American taxpayer “would be hurt” by the fund, he suggested that there’s an issue preventing them from seeking legal recourse. “There’s no such thing in this country as taxpayer standing,” he told Steele. “They don’t want to open the doors and the floodgates to everyone saying, ‘Well, I just don’t like how my money is being used.’”
However, the legal analyst and host of the MS NOW podcast “Main Justice with Andrew Weissmann and Mary McCord,” said there is a place where Americans can make their voices heard: the ballot box.
“It’s a reason to vote, because Congress can do something,” he said. “If the Democrats are in control, or the Democrats work with enough people of conscience who are Republicans or independents, they can both bring a lawsuit, and then — because you know who has the power of the purse, Congress — they can put an end to this.”
You can watch Weissmann’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”