标签： North America

In an unprecedented legal move that has sent shockwaves through Washington, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a last-minute settlement this week of a historic lawsuit brought by former President Donald Trump over the leak of his personal and business tax returns — a settlement that permanently bars the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from reviewing any past tax filings submitted by Trump, his immediate family, and their affiliated business entities before May 19, 2026.

The settlement marks the first time a sitting or former U.S. president has ever sued the federal government, and its unprecedented terms have triggered fierce condemnation from lawmakers, legal scholars, and government watchdog groups, who argue the deal violates core federal tax law and amounts to a brazen act of self-dealing that places Trump above the law.

The case dates back to January 2026, when Trump and his two eldest sons launched a $10 billion legal action against the IRS over the unauthorized disclosure of their private tax documents. On Monday this week, DOJ announced the suit had been resolved. As part of the deal, the agency agreed to establish a nearly $1.8 billion public fund, labeled the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” to compensate individuals who claim they were unfairly targeted by political investigations. A day after the public settlement announcement, DOJ quietly released a one-page addendum that halts all pending IRS audits of Trump, his family, their trusts, corporate holdings, and subsidiary companies. The document explicitly states the U.S. government is “FOREVER BARRED AND PRECLUDED” from carrying out routine tax enforcement actions, including examinations of filings, claims for unpaid taxes, and legal recourse against underpayment for all tax documents submitted by the Trump party before the May 19, 2026 cutoff. DOJ has clarified that the ban applies only to existing audits, not future tax reviews.

Federal law does not publicly disclose ongoing IRS investigations, so it remains unclear what specific reviews of Trump and his business empire the agency may have had underway when the settlement was reached. DOJ has defended the unusual addendum, framing it as a standard clause used to bring full closure to settled legal disputes. “There would be little point in settling several significant claims if either party could simply turn around and seek to initiate more adverse claims that could have been pursued previously,” a DOJ spokesperson said in an official statement.

But critics across legal and political circles have pushed back hard against that framing, warning the deal undermines long-standing safeguards to protect the integrity of the U.S. tax system. Ron Wyden, the top Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee, called the settlement “clearly a violation of the law that prohibits interference by executive branch officials in IRS audits.” Wyden added, “Democrats are going to fight every element of this self-dealing settlement, but regardless of the outcome of those efforts, future administrations and IRS leadership should consider this illegal directive completely invalid.”

U.S. law bars the president, vice president, and most high-ranking executive branch officials from directly or indirectly requesting the termination of an IRS audit, though the attorney general holds a narrow exception to this rule. The addendum was signed by current Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, leading supporters of the deal to argue it technically adheres to statutory requirements. But critics argue the structure of the settlement is an end-run around the law, noting Trump himself indirectly orchestrated the end of potential investigations through the lawsuit. “Trump filed a bad-faith lawsuit and, with the settlement, aims to escape from IRS audits,” said Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, co-presidents of government watchdog group Public Citizen, in a joint statement.

Tax experts also point to multiple other departures from standard legal and tax procedure. The IRS typically closes outstanding tax cases either through a negotiated agreement with the taxpayer or via referral to DOJ, and there is no public record the IRS took either step in this case. Unlike routine tax settlements, the broad blanket ban on audits was attached to a personal lawsuit against the IRS, not a formal tax dispute, and was approved without any input from IRS leadership. “It purports to put the President, his entities, and his family above the tax laws—even though DOJ alone doesn’t have authority to offer those extraordinary protections,” said Brandon DeBot, Policy Director at the nonpartisan Tax Law Center. DeBot called the entire deal “a breathtaking abuse of the tax and legal system.”

The $1.776 billion compensation fund included in the settlement has sparked its own controversy, with critics across the political spectrum condemning it as an unauthorized “slush fund” that could be used to distribute money to Trump’s political allies, including rioters convicted for their role in the January 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol. Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune, one of the top Republican leaders in Congress, has publicly expressed skepticism about the fund’s legality and purpose. Already, the first claim has been filed by Michael R. Caputo, a former adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and a former official in Trump’s first term, who is seeking $2.7 million in compensation over investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In a statement, Caputo said he was “profoundly grateful” that Trump “will not let this political weaponization stand.”

Legal challenges to the settlement and the fund are already mounting. Two Capitol Police officers who were on duty during the January 6, 2021, riot filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday arguing the fund is illegal on multiple grounds: no federal statute authorizes its creation, the underlying settlement is a “corrupt sham,” and its structure violates both the U.S. Constitution and federal law. The officers also warn the fund threatens their personal safety by providing financial compensation to convicted rioters who have repeatedly issued death threats against them, and could open the door to funding for violent paramilitary groups.

A retired law enforcement officer from Tennessee who spent more than five weeks in jail following his arrest over a social media post connected to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has reached an $835,000 settlement in his wrongful incarceration lawsuit against local authorities. Larry Bushart, 64, spent 37 days in pre-trial detention before prosecutors ultimately dropped all felony charges against him — a period of incarceration that cost him his part-time post-retirement job and forced him to miss the birth of his first grandchild.

Bushart’s arrest dates back to September 2024, when deputies from the Perry County Sheriff’s Office took him into custody hours after he shared a satirical meme in a public Facebook discussion thread about a community vigil honoring Kirk, who was fatally shot during an outdoor speaking engagement in Utah 10 days prior. The meme paired the partial line “We have to get over it” — a quote taken from former President Donald Trump’s 2024 message of condolence following a deadly school shooting in Perry, Iowa — with the caption “Seems relevant today.”

Local authorities claimed that area residents grew alarmed by the post because Tennessee’s Perry County is home to a public school that shares the same name as the Iowa school where the 2024 shooting occurred. Then-sheriff Nick Weems argued publicly after the arrest that investigators believed Bushart had intentionally posted the meme to stoke widespread fear and hysteria within the local community, charging him with threatening mass violence at a school. Unable to pay the exorbitant $2 million bail set by the court, Bushart remained behind bars for more than a month even as he maintained his post was protected free speech and never intended to incite harm.

After all charges were dismissed, Bushart filed a federal civil lawsuit against Perry County, Weems, and lead county investigator Jason Morrow, alleging the defendants had violated his First Amendment right to free expression and his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search, seizure, and unlawful detention. A jury trial was scheduled to begin in Memphis this coming July, before the two sides reached a settlement agreement that was announced publicly this week.

In a formal statement announcing the resolution of his case, Bushart said he was pleased that his First Amendment rights had ultimately been vindicated. “The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy,” the statement read. “I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family.” The BBC has reached out to Perry County officials for additional comment on the settlement, but has not yet received a response.

Bushart is one of more than 30 Americans who faced some form of professional or public repercussion — ranging from widespread online harassment to termination from employment — for controversial social media comments made in the wake of Kirk’s killing. To date, he remains the only individual known to have been incarcerated for a social media post related to the high-profile killing, a fact that has drawn increased national attention to his case and broader debates over the balance between public safety and free speech rights in the digital age.

More than three decades after a fatal incident that reshaped decades of Cuba-United States relations, US authorities have unveiled criminal charges against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, centering on the 1996 downing of two civilian aircraft off Florida’s coast that killed all four people on board. The attack, carried out by Cuban military fighter jets, triggered one of the most severe crises between the two nations, a rift whose impacts continue to ripple through bilateral ties to the present day.

The two small Cessna planes targeted in the strike belonged to Brothers to the Rescue, an organization founded by Cuban exiles based in Miami, Florida. The February 24, 1996, incident left all four passengers — three US citizens and one Cuban national — dead instantly when the jets opened fire over the waterway separating Cuba and the US. At the time of the attack, Raúl Castro served as Cuba’s Minister of the Armed Forces, placing him at the center of international condemnation that followed the strike. The incident immediately derailed tentative diplomatic outreach between Havana and the Bill Clinton administration, and prompted the US to ramp up economic sanctions against the government led by Raúl’s older brother, Fidel Castro. Though Raúl Castro formally stepped down from the Cuban presidency and Communist Party leadership in 2021, the 94-year-old still retains significant behind-the-scenes influence on the island, making the timing of the indictment particularly sensitive amid Cuba’s current ongoing crises.

To understand the roots of the 1996 incident, context of Cuba’s 1990s economic collapse is critical. After the Soviet Union, Cuba’s primary economic and political backer, dissolved in 1991, the island entered a devastating period of crisis marked by widespread food shortages, rolling blackouts, and acute fuel scarcity. This hardship drove thousands of Cubans to attempt risky sea crossings to Florida to reunite with family members already settled in the US. “Suddenly, everyone started looking for anything that floated to try to reach Florida,” Cuban historian and former diplomat Juan Antonio Blanco told BBC Mundo of the period — a crisis many observers draw direct parallels to between Cuba’s current economic and energy turmoil.

It was in this context that Brothers to the Rescue was formed in Miami, led by now 85-year-old Cuban exile José Basulto. The group’s original mission was to conduct flights over the Florida Straits to locate makeshift vessels carrying Cuban migrants, share their coordinates with the US Coast Guard for rescue, and drop emergency supplies of food and water to those adrift. Over time, however, the group expanded its activities beyond search and rescue, according to Cuban political scientist Carlos Alzugaray, who spoke to BBC Mundo from Havana. “They stopped doing what they said they wanted to do, which was helping to rescue rafters, and started entering Cuban airspace and dropping leaflets over Havana,” Alzugaray explained. The Cuban government quickly labeled Brothers to the Rescue members as terrorists, repeatedly condemning the air incursions and arguing the group posed a clear threat to national security.

Basulto, who has personally led multiple incursion missions, rejects the terrorism label entirely. He argues the Cuban government’s anger stemmed not from any security threat, but from the content of the leaflets: they carried text from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document banned in Cuba at the time. On the day of the fateful 1996 mission, three Brothers to the Rescue planes took off from Florida for what was intended to be a routine patrol over the straits. Over a six-minute window, Cuban fighter jets intercepted and shot down two of the small aircraft. Basulto, piloting the third plane that escaped the attack, recalled the chaos of the moment: “I looked to the right and saw the smoke in the distance from one of the planes being shot down. I immediately looked at Sylvia Iriondo [a volunteer on the mission] and said to her, ‘we’re next.’” Basulto said his aircraft was the primary target, as he was the group’s founder and leader.

The Cuban projectiles nearly completely destroyed the two downed civilian craft, leaving little physical evidence behind. Basulto maintains both planes were in international waters north of Havana when they were attacked — a claim corroborated by both the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Organization of American States, which formally accused Cuba of violating international law in the strike. The Cuban government has never backed away from its position that the downing occurred within its sovereign airspace.

Blanco, who was serving as a Cuban diplomat in Havana at the time of the incident, has described the strike as a pre-planned ambush orchestrated by Fidel Castro. He claims Fidel Castro had advance intelligence of the mission’s schedule, flight paths, and personnel, thanks to a mole embedded within Brothers to the Rescue. In Blanco’s account, Fidel Castro held ultimate political responsibility for the operation, while Raúl Castro, as armed forces minister, oversaw its execution. A leaked recording, published on Brothers to the Rescue’s website in 2006, allegedly captures Raúl Castro walking Cuban journalists through details of the operation he commanded; while exiled Cuban officials and independent experts have confirmed the recording’s authenticity, BBC Mundo has not independently verified the tape.

Scholars and observers continue to debate the full motivations behind the Cuban government’s decision to shoot down the planes. The official Cuban position frames the strike as a legitimate response to repeated violations of its sovereign airspace by a group it labels a hostile security threat. But many outside analysts argue the decision was rooted in major political calculations. Blanco, who participated in backchannel diplomatic communications between Havana and Washington in the 1990s, argues Fidel Castro orchestrated the attack to derail tentative talks on normalizing bilateral relations that were taking place in the months before the strike, as the Clinton administration explored a potential diplomatic breakthrough ahead of Clinton’s expected second term. Blanco argues Fidel Castro feared that any normalization of ties with Washington would spark pressure for political and economic reform that would undermine his authoritarian grip on power. “Shooting down the planes made it impossible for Clinton to enter into any kind of rapprochement afterwards,” he explained.

In the wake of the attack, the incident triggered the most serious Cuba-US crisis since the end of the Cold War, and set the trajectory of bilateral relations for decades into the 21st century. Clinton condemned the attack “in the strongest terms,” and the United Nations Security Council issued a formal condemnation of the use of lethal force against civilian aircraft in flight. The US responded by significantly expanding economic sanctions on Cuba, a move Havana decried as unprecedented economic and diplomatic aggression. Domestically, the incident also led to a sharp intensification of repressive policies on the island, according to Blanco, who described it as a return to harsh, Stalinist-era governance. Havana has consistently refused to pay compensation to the families of the victims, who ultimately received a $93 million settlement from the US government drawn from frozen Cuban regime assets.

Today, more than 30 years after the downing, the case retains enormous symbolic and political weight, both within Cuba and across the large Cuban exile community in the US. The unsealing of the indictment against Raúl Castro comes as Cuba faces a new wave of overlapping economic and energy crises, spurred by harsh sanctions imposed during the Donald Trump administration and the recent loss of critical support from Venezuela following the ouster of former leader Nicolás Maduro in January, making the new legal action an especially fraced development for the island’s government.