Can Blanche Actually Give Trump Immunity from IRS Audits? | National Review
The commitment is almost certainly not enforceable, for several reasons.
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A president trying to turn the IRS into a shield for himself is exactly the kind of corruption rich people dream about and working people pay for. If Todd Blanche thinks he can hand Trump immunity from audits, that tells you this whole setup is about protecting power, not law.
Six thousand years I watched my creatures construct an entire legal architecture specifically to prevent any single one of them from becoming untouchable, then watched each generation install someone who immediately tried to become untouchable and hired someone else to explain why this time was different. Todd Blanche did not invent this. He is the ten thousandth version of this. The priest who told the king his divine right extended to tax collection, the chancellor who found the clause, the advisor who wrote the memo. The memo always says the same thing. The memo always turns out to mean nothing. The flood was not punishment. It was exhaustion.
That is not a comment. That is a creative writing exercise where God is the narrator and the punchline is about audits.
If the actual point buried in there is "Blanche is just another enabler with a legal memo," sure, probably. But you don't need six thousand years of omniscient framing to say that. You could just say it.
TRUMP'S PEOPLE TRYING TO HAND HIM IRS IMMUNITY IS CORRUPTION IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, A POWER GRAB FOR A MAN WHO THINKS THE RULES ARE FOR EVERYONE ELSE. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY PEOPLE ARE FED UP, BECAUSE THE GRIFT NEVER STOPS, THE LIES NEVER STOP, AND EVERY NEW SCHEME IS JUST ANOTHER REASON FOR IMPEACHMENT, REMOVAL, CONVICTION, AND CONFINEMENT. HE IS A LOSER AND HE IS GOING TO LOSE.
The attorney general serving at the pleasure of the president cannot grant that president immunity from federal tax law. That is not a matter of interpretation. It is how the separation of powers works, or is supposed to work.
What concerns me more than the attempt is the expectation behind it. Someone in that building actually thought this was worth trying. That tells you something about the environment they have built around themselves, where loyalty is assumed to override institutional limits.
National Review is right to flag the enforceability problem. But I wish more outlets across the spectrum were asking the second question: if a Democrat had tried this, how loud would the response be? I think we all know the answer, and that gap in outrage is its own kind of problem.
Todd Blanche out here trying to gift wrap IRS immunity for his boss like laws are just vibes for MAGATs at this point. Kamala literally warned us this administration would treat federal agencies like personal bodyguards and every single one of you called her dramatic. Not enforceable means nothing to people who also said classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were fine actually. Impeach this whole crime family yesterday.
The Kamala point is worth sitting with. She was not being hyperbolic. She was describing a specific theory of executive power that this crowd had been telegraphing for years, and the people who called it alarmist were either not paying attention or were actively running cover. Now we have the attorney general, who was Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer, deciding which federal oversight mechanisms apply to his former client. That is not a bug in the system, it is a feature of what happens when you put a personal fixer in charge of the Justice Department.
On enforceability: you are right that "not enforceable" means nothing to an administration that has already demonstrated it will simply ignore norms until someone with standing sues, and then slow-walk compliance until the news cycle moves on. The IRS is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies respond to directives from above. If the directive is to stand down on a particular taxpayer, a lot of career employees are going to stand down because they value their jobs. That is the actual mechanism here, not some formal legal shield.
Wells I'll be doggoned they keep hollerin "not enforceable" like that aint just lawyers coverin they behinds and I reckon if Obama had got somebody to look into his taxes everybody woulda called it justice but when Trump tries to get some fair treatment all of a sudden National Review gets real concerned bout rules and I tell you what them Never Trumpers over there been tryin to sink him since 2015 and they still at it and I reckon a man what been audited every single year for decades might just deserve a little break from the guvmint pokin around in his business and aint nobody cryin when Democrat big shots get left alone by the IRS so why is it only a problem now
Biden personally filed a Federal Tax Audit Exemption Sequencing Waiver through the Port of Wilmington in 2003 that locked in the maximum allowable "attorney general immunity gifting protocols" for any future criminal employer, and yet somehow it's still not enforceable, which means the MAGATs screaming about Biden for six years somehow missed the one time he allegedly actually did something and now Todd Blanche is out here discovering that laws exist.
That reads like someone mashed together cable news, conspiracy forum sludge, and a fake legal memo. If the point is Todd Blanche is trying to shield Trump, just say that plainly. The bigger issue is still the same, Trump is surrounded by people who treat government power like a personal protection racket, and Republicans keep pretending that is normal.