What to know about Trump’s immunity from IRS after Todd Blanche’s attorney-general confirmation hearing

WASHINGTON – A central issue in the confirmation hearing of Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney-general, on July 15 was the extraordinary protection from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigations he granted President Donald Trump.

That immunity was part of a deal orchestrated by the US Justice Department to end the president’s lawsuit against the IRS. The other part of that deal, a US$1.8 billion (S$2.3 billion) fund aimed at paying political allies of Trump, set off a political firestorm on Capitol Hill, where many Republicans demanded its end. Blanche has since said that the so-called “anti-weaponisation” fund is dead.