Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refuses to say whether Trump remains exempt from IRS audits

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to say Wednesday whether President Donald Trump and his family would still get immunity from IRS audits after the administration abandoned plans for a $1.776 billion compensation fund that would have benefited the president's allies. "There's continuing litigation, and I'm unable to comment on ongoing litigation," Bessent told lawmakers at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. It was a frustrating answer for Democratic lawmakers looking to get answers from Bessent at a hearing ostensibly focused on the Treasury Department's budget and came a day after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche seemed to indicate that the portion of the settlement dealing with the IRS audit immunity would still be in effect for the Republican president. After several failed attempts to get Bessent to answer, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said, "It's been very clear you're dodging this and you're trying to use it as an excuse. It's just outrageous on behalf of the American public." The White House referred the Associated Press to Secretary Bessent's comments in response to an inquiry about the status of the settlement. In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump did not confirm whether the compensation fund had been scrapped or was simply on hold. "I'd have to ask the lawyers, I don't know," he told reporters. "As far as I'm concerned, it was a beautiful thing," he said. The administration decided to scrap plans for the compensation fund, which could have included payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, after bipartisan outrage and a fierce political backlash that threatened to stall key elements of the White House agenda. Still, the status of the IRS immunity deal as part of the controversial settlement crafted to resolve Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS remained unclear, though Blanche said Tuesday that "nothing has changed" in that regard. Last week, a federal judge in Florida overseeing Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, who had initially dismissed the case, reopened the case and ordered the president's attorneys to respond to allegations that Trump abandoned his claims to avoid the court's scrutiny of the deal. When she initially dismissed the case, Kathleen Williams, the judge handling the lawsuit, admonished the Justice Department for a lack of transparency and said no agency "submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that the settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed." Matt Platkin, a former New Jersey attorney general now at the law firm Platkin LLP, which is representing lawmakers and judges challenging the settlement agreement, called it "one of the greatest scams in American history." He told The Associated Press that Blanche's testimony on Tuesday over plans to scrap the weaponization fund and grant Trump audit immunity "underscores the need for the court to continue its inquiry in Florida." Lawmakers on Wednesday tried to grill Bessent on the agreement without success. "Secretary Bessent owes the committee an explanation of what the Treasury knows about the dirty settlement. That's because his department was involved from beginning to end," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Wyden asked Bessent: "Does the IRS audit immunity given to Trump, his family, and his businesses still stand?" Bessent declined to answer, citing the unresolved legal dispute. If audits and examinations into the president's taxes were thrown out under the settlement, an untold figure could be wiped from his bill to the federal tax collector. Previous reporting from the New York Times and ProPublica shows that a long-standing audit of a technique Trump reportedly used to avoid paying taxes years ago could have resulted in an estimated $100 million bill if the IRS had found wrongdoing. Even some Republicans expressed concern on Wednesday over the plan to shield Trump from the IRS. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., speaking to reporters outside the chambers, said, "I don't think any American should have a deal like that." Nina Olson, founder of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, which has sued the Trump administration over IRS disclosures to immigration enforcement, called the settlement "the lowest point for the IRS since the 1970s and President Nixon's efforts to help his friends by trying to stop IRS audits of them and hurting his enemies by urging IRS audits on them."