Questions about Trump's criminal liability arise as Mueller prosecutor sees immunity crack

Andrew Weissmann, the former federal prosecutor who served as a top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller, said this week that President Donald Trump's controversial $1.776 billion January 6 slush fund may have inadvertently exposed him to criminal liability that the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling will not save him from.

Weissmann, now an MS NOW legal analyst and professor at NYU School of Law, appeared on the network to discuss the fund Trump created by settling his own lawsuit against the IRS. Asked whether anyone could actually face consequences for the arrangement, Weissmann walked through the legal anatomy of why the immunity defense may not work.

The Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Trump v. United States granted broad immunity to a president for official acts. Weissmann said the slush fund does not look like an official act. It looks like something else.

"We would have to find in this situation that this was entirely personal on his part," Weissmann said. "Not a bad argument. If it can be argued that what he is doing is entirely personal, then that immunity decision is to the side."

He went further.

"But then he would have liability, and anyone who was complicit would have liability," Weissmann said.

The slush fund, created out of a settlement of a $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS for $1.776 billion, has drawn outrage from Republicans and Democrats alike. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and others have called it a misuse of taxpayer dollars.

Weissmann was scathing about the underlying case. He said it had no legal merit. The lawsuit was filed out of time, past the two-year window required, and would have been worth nothing if it had proceeded normally.

"The amount of money that Donald Trump was owed was zero," Weissmann said. "I've said I don't do math in public, but I can say zero is less than 1.776."

He compared the arrangement to a straightforward theft.

"What is the difference between this and just Donald Trump going into Fort Knox and taking the gold and using it for whatever purposes he wants?" Weissmann said. "That is theft."

Weissmann said the structure of the deal creates exposure for anyone who helped carry it out.

"If you are creating a bogus settlement fund, that is just theft of the public money," he said.