Jimmy Kimmel blasted Donald Trump’s IRS settlement as the “most brazenly corrupt move by any president ever,” with special mention for his personal lawyer-turned-Attorney General, Todd Blanche, on Monday.
The Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion settlement with Trump to drop the $10 billion lawsuit filed by the president and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, in January, over the leak of the president’s tax returns during his first presidency.
As a part of the settlement, the DOJ announced an agreement that included a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which will compensate “victims of lawfare and weaponization.”
Kimmel began his monologue, “The president graciously agreed to drop the lawsuit against himself in exchange for an apology and a fund worth 1.776 billion that he can use to pay anyone for anything at all, including the loons who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.”
The slush fund was signed off on by Acting Attorney General and the president’s former lawyer, Todd Blanche, who Kimmel referred to as “Trump’s own little maltipoo.”
“Another part of the settlement says the IRS is forever barred and precluded from investigating claims against Trump or members of his family for past unpaid taxes and possibly even future ones, too,” continued Kimmel. “And that, folks, is what they call the art of the deal.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump claims those who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, were “horribly treated” by the Biden administration.
“They’ve been weaponized,” the president told reporters. “They’ve been, in some cases, imprisoned wrongly. They paid legal fees that they didn’t have. They’ve gone bankrupt. Their lives have been destroyed.”
After playing clips of the president’s remarks, Kimmel retorted, “Yes, the great patriots who urinated and smeared feces all over the walls of the Capitol building were right. They were horribly treated.”
“Let’s cut them a check,” he continued, as his audience booed. “Let’s give them our money. What do you say, you guys?”
Blanche, who will choose five people to lead the fund, was cornered about the settlement in a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, during which Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen accused the Attorney General of still behaving like Trump’s personal lawyer.
“Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president’s personal attorney, and that’s the whole problem,” said Van Hollen.
Kimmel’s audience cheered in response to the senator’s message after the clip ended. The late-night host grinned, “That was amazing.”
