The Daily Fuckup

The basic timeline is clear, and it is narrower than the latest chatter around the case suggests. On May 18, 2026, the Justice Department announced the Anti-Weaponization Fund as part of a settlement in Trump v. IRS, saying the plaintiffs would receive a formal apology but no money and that the agreement called for a $1.776 billion fund drawn from the Judgment Fund. The settlement text also set out a dismissal with prejudice and a June 15 deadline to withdraw related claims. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-anti-weaponization-fund))

What the record does not show is the stronger claim that DOJ “lost” the file or could not find the case records. A May 12 FOIA request from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked DOJ, Treasury, and the IRS for communications and any settlement, compromise, or other document resolving Trump v. Internal Revenue Service, plus drafts and related messages. That request proves there was a records hunt. It does not, by itself, prove that DOJ lacked the file or that the department failed to preserve it. ([citizensforethics.org](https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/foia-requests/crew-requests-records-from-doj-and-treasury-on-trump-v-irs-settlement-negotiations/))

The other important fact is that DOJ later changed course. In a June 5 court filing, the department said the Anti-Weaponization Fund was not going forward, a move that made the legal fight over the fund’s future largely moot. That is different from saying the government had no records. It is a retreat from the policy, not evidence of a missing paper trail. ([citizensforethics.org](https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/foia-requests/crew-requests-records-from-doj-and-treasury-on-trump-v-irs-settlement-negotiations/))

So the cleaner story is not that DOJ cannot explain a vanished settlement file. It is that DOJ announced an unusually political claims fund, faced immediate scrutiny over the arrangement, and then told a court it would not proceed with the fund. The records request adds another transparency angle, but the primary documents available here do not support turning that request into a conclusion that the underlying case file disappeared. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-anti-weaponization-fund))