1. United States
2. Colo.
3. Letter

As your constituent and a 30-year law enforcement officer, I’m writing because the latest reporting that the Department of Justice is considering settling President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS is a perfect example of what happens when a political party kneels before a king and allows him to fleece the U.S. Treasury of 10 BILLION dollars. A president directing his own DOJ to negotiate a payout to himself using taxpayer money is not public service, not conservative governance, and not constitutional accountability. It is the kind of self-dealing our system was designed to prevent. If any other public official tried to use their office to personally enrich themselves through the very agencies they oversee, every Republican would call it corruption. And they’d be right. These are not partisan talking points. They are straightforward applications of the tax code and its regulations. Yet your party is standing by while a president attempts to use the Department of Justice to negotiate a personal payout from the very government he leads. On top of the ethical and constitutional problems, the claim itself fails on basic statutory grounds: 1. It only applies to a government employee. 26 U.S.C. 7431(a)(1) allows a claim only when an officer or employee of the United States improperly discloses return information. If the disclosure was by anyone other than a federal employee, the statute does not apply. 2. The maximum statutory amount is $1,000. Under 26 U.S.C. 7431(c), statutory damages are capped at $1,000 per act unless actual damages are proven. There is no legal basis for anything close to a multibillion-dollar payout. 3. The statute of limitations is two years. 26 U.S.C. 7431(d) requires filing within two years of discovering the disclosure. Trump’s 2019 return information became public years before he filed his lawsuit. He only filed after he won reelection, which makes the claim not just time-barred but an obvious grift you are kneeling for. I am asking you directly: Do you support using the DOJ to pursue a claim that fails on employee status, damages, and statute of limitations? Do you believe Congress has any obligation to stop a president from attempting to personally enrich himself with taxpayer funds? Colorado deserves an answer. Your constituents deserve an answer. And the Constitution demands one.