The Treasury’s most senior lawyer has dramatically quit, just hours after the Trump administration unveiled a vast $1.776 billion fund to enrich Jan. 6 rioters and other MAGA loyalists.
Brian Morrissey, the department’s general counsel, stepped down a mere seven months after his Senate confirmation, three sources aware of his decision told the New York Times.
His abrupt departure came on the same day that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
Morrissey, who also served in Trump’s first administration, is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H. W. Bush appointee.
The vast payout pot, set up by the Justice Department, was created to settle Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leaking of his tax returns during his first term in the White House.
Trump dropped his original lawsuit on Monday after a judge cast doubt on the basic legality of a sitting president filing suit against a department he himself runs.
The Treasury, which now has to deposit the eye-watering sum into an account controlled by a five-member commission hand-picked by Blanche, declined to explain Morrissey’s exit.
Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin, 63, called it “pure fraud and highway robbery,” while nearly 100 House Democrats filed an amicus brief seeking to block the settlement. The Beast also reported Monday that recipients of the payouts—and the sums they pocket—will be kept hidden from the public.
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