immigration package was paused by Senate Republicans over news of President Trump's 1.7, 7, 6 billion dollar IRS settlement fund.

The so-called anti-government weaponization fund was created following a lawsuit to President Trump and 2 of his sons filed against the IRS after their financial information was leaked.

The fund is dedicated to those who have been supposedly wrongs by the Department of Justice and Trump alluded to giving the money to political allies including those who participated in the January 6th insurrection.

But it has experts and Congress members raising eyebrows.

Joining us now are Harold Krantz, professor at Chicago.

Can't College of Law and author of the book Presidential Powers.

And Jordan Gans, Morse associate professor of political science with a focus on corruption and authoritarian institutions at Northwestern University.

Gentleman, welcome.

Thanks for joining us.

So Want to start with you because The New York Times is reporting that this settlement happened just days before a federal judge was set to rule on the legitimacy of the Trump's lawsuit over the IRS.

You break down to that original lawsuit that the Trump smiled.

So the lawsuit was filed because personal information and tax returns which are not supposed to be released were released.

>> Inadvertently by the IRS, the traced it to independent contractor.

So not an employee of the IRS to 40 beat that information to The New York Times.

And Politico illegally.

Indeed, that individual is facing jail time.

I think for 5 years in jail.

Nonetheless, the president and the Suns sued the IRS for this failure to keep his information confidential.

The lawsuit was a long shot.

It had very little to arm because go on because the mistake was not made by the R I arrest was made by this independent contractor and he waited too long to Sew is probably out of time.

The statue limitations had Not so the question is not set up.

Is this settlement?

Bogus?

This is a symptom of a lawsuit that had no leg to stand on or is this really a legitimate settlement of the suit in which case he would be authorized to tap into the department just is judgment fund in order to pay it.

And it was like a 10 billion dollar lawsuit.

Wasn't it also a bit strange.

The president to sue his own government?

>> It is a bit strange and shows the and M a conflict of interests which are at the core of this administration up.

But it can happen.

>> And in this case, it's even become worse.

Of course, as you could see by laying out the information because anti-government weaponization fund a sweet 1.7, 6 billion dollars.

And as 17, 76 was going to 7 absolutely.

And who's going to go for?

It's going to go for his friends who were similarly victimized by weaponize Department of Justice during prior administrations, not his.

And and this.

This money being taken from funds that are typically given to people who do when lawsuits in a court of law against the Justice Department.

But how is it that the president is able to gain control over it and say?

>> And, you know, order, you know, one of his department's one of his agencies to use it for this purpose.

It's it's a violation congressional legislation.

So it's up to Congress to stand up and try to fight back.

Congress says the reserve judgment fund and if you we lawsuit against the government, you can get paid, which is good.

And if you have to show your case, you can get paid.

This isn't a settlement.

This was volunteer with to the action which was probably for to begin with and then use as just an excuse.

It's presents a brazen use of this mechanism to help support signal his allies.

He has their back.

Jordan, does this meet your definition of corruption?

Absolutely.

I think the way political scientists is usually think of corruption is the abuse.

A public officer or materials or resources for private gain or political game and clearly for political gain, given that this is going to be money that's controlled by people who have a strong alliance with Trump it can be used in ways that help him politically.

That alone makes it corruption.

extent of those additional measures that prep shield Trump and his family from additional sorts any sand sort at that live in the violent PACs top.

That would also be personal gain that is going to from in multiple ways.

This looks like corruption how is this fund and how it's being established this entire move?

How is it different from other cases of corruption or alleged corruption that you study?

>> One thing that really strikes me is how openly Trump does everything.

And this seems almost I don't know if this is something that he doesn't actually or if you just doesn't understand you know, in his mind, things he does are are not problematic.

>> But even in places that I look at, including places like Putin's Russia, Decatur, still care about being perceived as corrupt, even have a lot of power.

They don't want to be unpopular and captions unpopular in many, many places.

And so we like Putin to the extent that he's doing various corruption schemes tries to keep them somewhere quiet.

Trump just doesn't right in front of which creates sort of a conundrum conference about Yeah, that's right.

And Chris Oladokun under because, you know, a part of you looking at that goes was so bad.

He just do this out in the open.

But it really is that bad news just doing it right in front of our faces, which is really unusual.

>> Could that could that for him later on?

If that is the case, if this is corruption and it is found to be so.

I would like to say yes, but we've seen Trump defy the laws of political gravity over and over and over again to the point where any sort of guest like that seems like wishful thinking.

>> Given that many, many things that would have sunk any other politician in just about any political system just not hurt Trump, at least not with his base.

Harold, are there any legal safeguards to rein this in?

>> just yesterday question first.

I mean, I think this is corruption.

I think it goes deeper than corruption because if you take this in conjunction with pardons given out to January 6 insurgents, what you see is a message that Trump is sending.

I have your back.

If you do my bidding, even if it's illegal.

If you go out and riot, if you're out attack a policeman, if you go, what his own agenda on through the government in my service, I will pardon you.

I will give you money.

I will compensate So look what happened may happen with the midterms.

That's my fear that the message will be received in that way.

As people will say, hey, this president is giving us a signal to go and be violent.

That's the risk.

>> So it seems like Congress is reacting today, although they're going out of town for the Memorial Day weekend.

But it sounds like there were some concerns from even Republicans about, you know, about passing their homeland security package yet this is happening out in the open, as we've discussed.

Is Congress likely to get involved in pressuring the president or to cancel this fund even during a midterm year?

It might.

You let's hope this is a violation of Congress's appropriations power.

>> This is taking the jump in front and using it for personal purposes violates a whole raft of federal laws.

There's also lawsuit was shot lawsuits.

There's already been one filed.

The problem if the lawsuit is you have to have someone who's been injured by this.

And yet the sort of say that because of the president giving out money to his friends, I will likely be affected poorly because I'm more likely to get beaten I'm more likely to be investigators, something like that.

So that's a difficult a long road to go into court.

The better option in the more direct is what may happen.

Congress to say President Ford too far.

This is not with the judgment funds about.

We don't like what you're doing here and we're going to withhold.

Legislation that you want until you change and cancel what you've done.

Jordan, the Republican Senate, as we mentioned, a positive vote on the immigration enforcement package.

How is this impacting the G O P s?

>> Leverage with Democrats in negotiating.

I think the Democrats are happy to finally see at least some GOP support for reining in Trump.

But again, I said before, we simply have seen Trump operating differently universe.

And we've also just seen a number of primary elections.

Were Trump's power still really, really visible to Republicans?

And if you go it's really clear what he can do to politically harm.

You.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the Republicans are speaking out, but we'll have to see where things really go.

He rolled to officers, as you mentioned, who were defending the Capitol on January 6.

They are suing to block the funds from being given out to those people who participated in the insurrection.

>> Is that a long shot that that you are speaking the water?

that a long They have to show individually to injury under our laws now to go into court get trigger any kind of judicial consideration.

>> And they have to show that because of this fund being given out to Giuliani or whomever that they will more and more likely face some kind of injury in the future.

That's a lot 10.

You ation.

A lot of speculation before between between giving out money to the January 6 protesters are insurgents and the fact that something may happen in the future, it could happen.

And a court could say, you know, it's more likely to happen to cops to happen to somebody else to have this kind of injury and therefore open the courthouse doors to consider it.

But there's a lot of steps to go through before the court can comfortable.

We're taking on this case.

Jordan, you know, as we mentioned, you study authoritarian governments in other you say we're not we're not there yet.

How would you describe Trump's playbook and where we are in that playbook?

>> I think Trump himself certainly exhibits many characteristics of somebody who's an authority leader.

He would like not to be.

>> Bound by constraints.

we know that he openly admires authoritarian leaders in terms, though, of America's system as a whole, we still have have had up to this point at least free and fair elections.

And until that is violated, we still, I think, are in a democratic system.

But one that is under a lot of pressure.

And this is just one more example of that just to name a few things.

And some been mentioned.

But this is just showcasing black with Tommy of that of the Department of Justice.

At this point.

It's also showcasing the breakdown separation of powers.

Us mention terms of the of nation of of Congress's power of appropriation and the purse.

And it's also really raising serious concerns about supporting and encouraging political violence as was just mentioned, OK?

And you mentioned, you know, free and fair elections.

We've got one coming up.

Some some primaries are still happening.

We had some earlier this week and of