1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

Trump and Blanche are betting they can get away with the IRS settlement and its $1.8 billion fund, but they already are facing a rip current of resistance. The bet is that the heist is politically outrageous but legally stitched up: file an unconstitutional lawsuit, then voluntarily withdraw it before the judge could rule; bury a billion-dollar fund in the fine print of a phony settlement; count on a compliant Republican majority to swallow the violations of congressional appropriations law without a word. One or two news cycles, then move on. But it’s not working out that way so far. The scandal is metastasizing. The days since Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced and defended the agreement have been brutal—for Blanche in particular. Trump has left Blanche to take the heat, claiming on Monday that he knows “very little about it” and “wasn’t involved in the creation of it.” This from the man who said he was “supposed to work out a settlement with myself” and instructed the Treasury Secretary to “tell ‘em to pay me.” The president who openly boasted about controlling both sides of his own lawsuit suddenly has no idea how the resulting $1.776 billion fund came to exist. It falls to Blanche to defend this toxic waste dump, and he has jumped to the task with his characteristic eagerness to please the man who controls his future at DOJ. Blanche has repeatedly suggested that the arrangement is not unprecedented and that Trump “isn’t taking a dime.” Both arguments have been blown out of the water. Impeachment is the remedy.