MS NOW⁠95%

Acting AG Blanche backs away from ‘slush fund,’ but preserves Trump’s IRS audit shield ⁠72%

By Steve Benen⁠95%

6/3/2026, 5:56:17 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Framing Effect, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 61.2% saturation with 317 hits. Analysis detected 1,704 faulty-reasoning hits from 518 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 63.9% and a BS Rank of ⁠72% (6,330 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 71.10% of the article peer group.

When Donald Trump withdrew his outlandish $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS two weeks ago, the president soon after received two scandalous rewards. 
The first was the creation of a $1.766 billion compensation fund, which was quickly condemned by members of both parties as a “slush fund” that could benefit the White House’s political allies. 
In recent days, the administration, facing fierce bipartisan pushback, backed off its plans for the fund, and on Tuesday afternoon, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed to a House Appropriations Committee panel, “We’re not moving forward with the fund. 
Period.” 
The comments were meant to be definitive, but he did not end the larger discussion. 
For one thing, when Democratic Rep. 
Grace Meng of New York pressed Blanche on whether he could commit in writing to the demise of the fund, he balked, arguing unpersuasively that such a move would be unnecessary. 
For another, there are a variety of pending legislative measures designed to ensure that the fund is dead and that nothing like this ever happens again, and those proposals are still likely to receive votes on Capitol Hill in the very near future. 
But then there’s the other reward the president received after withdrawing his IRS civil suit. 
MS NOW reported: 
Though he said the “anti-weaponization” fund is not moving forward, Blanche affirmed that the rest of the Trump-IRS settlement remains intact, including the addendum, which grants Trump, his family and his businesses immunity from all existing IRS tax audits. 
In recent weeks, the “slush fund” controversy eclipsed the IRS audit shield, which was understandable given the severity of the corruption surrounding the fund, its creation and its future. 
But this surviving part of the deal is still extraordinarily important. 
Indeed, from Trump’s perspective, it’s arguably more important. 
While the fund was likely to be used to send taxpayer-funded checks to the White House’s allies, this second, separate reward is designed to personally benefit the president, his family and his controversial private business. 
In other words, Team Trump abandoned a scheme that would have helped the president’s allies, but left intact a parallel scheme that helps the president directly. 
Blanche emphasized during his congressional testimony, “It’s not a forward-looking document. 
It’s nothing that gives any sort of immunity in the future to the president or his family or his organizations.” 
That was true, though it downplayed the significance of the acting attorney general’s gift to his former client: The IRS has effectively wiped the slate clean for Trump, his family and his business, dropping all pending audits of previous tax returns, in a move that appears entirely unprecedented. 
As The New York Times reported, “These protections could be immensely valuable to Mr. 
Trump and his family, who have faced repeated audits from the Internal Revenue Service. 
Just one investigation by the I.R.S. stemmed in part from how Mr. 
Trump claimed losses on his Chicago tower could have cost him more than $100 million.” 
The “slush fund” appears to be dead; the broader scandal, however, remains very much alive. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 18.3%Steve Benen: 10.5%MS NOW: 7.5%Confirmation Bias18.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.2%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 10.2%Steve Benen: 3.7%MS NOW: 3.7%Availability Heuristic10.2%This article: 8.3%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic8.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.3%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 2.6%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 23.6%Steve Benen: 23.0%MS NOW: 15.4%Framing Effect23.6%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.4%MS NOW: 0.7%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 8.3%Steve Benen: 1.3%MS NOW: 2.4%Optimism Bias8.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 3.2%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 61.2%Steve Benen: 29.0%MS NOW: 19.2%Negativity Bias61.2%This article: 6.6%Steve Benen: 2.1%MS NOW: 2.4%Self-Serving Bias6.6%This article: 5.0%Steve Benen: 4.7%MS NOW: 3.1%Fundamental Attribution Error5.0%This article: 15.3%Steve Benen: 0.3%MS NOW: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias15.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.4%MS NOW: 3.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.2%MS NOW: 2.5%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 2.2%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 4.4%MS NOW: 1.8%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 5.6%Steve Benen: 2.9%MS NOW: 1.8%Recency Bias5.6%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.6%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 6.0%Steve Benen: 7.8%MS NOW: 4.7%Ad Hominem6.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 6.3%MS NOW: 5.4%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 7.9%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 2.2%False Dilemma7.9%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.7%MS NOW: 2.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 5.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Circular Reasoning5.0%This article: 15.6%Steve Benen: 8.9%MS NOW: 8.1%Hasty Generalization15.6%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.7%MS NOW: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.2%MS NOW: 0.9%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 11.6%Steve Benen: 11.3%MS NOW: 9.8%Appeal to Emotion11.6%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.5%MS NOW: 2.4%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 7.3%Steve Benen: 3.3%MS NOW: 3.2%Post Hoc (False Cause)7.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.6%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 0.9%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 2.9%Steve Benen: 2.0%MS NOW: 2.6%Anecdotal2.9%This article: 8.3%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.2%No True Scotsman8.3%This article: 13.7%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)13.7%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.5%MS NOW: 0.3%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.2%MS NOW: 1.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 15.3%Steve Benen: 3.8%MS NOW: 2.5%Unattributed Quote15.3%This article: 2.7%Steve Benen: 2.6%MS NOW: 1.5%Quote-first Misdirection2.7%This article: 55.2%Steve Benen: 22.9%MS NOW: 14.2%Biased Writer Voice55.2%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 2.1%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 15.1%Steve Benen: 8.6%MS NOW: 5.3%Politically Left Leaning Bias15.1%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.6%MS NOW: 0.6%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.4%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

518 words analyzed.

Speakers

4speakers31%attributed speech358writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 14 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 39 words • 100.0% coverageTodd Blanche • 1 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 0.0% coverageGrace Meng • 31 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 43 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageMS NOW • 3 words • 0.0% coverageTodd Blanche • 39 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 29 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 35 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 26 words • 100.0% coverageTodd Blanche • 11 words • 0.0% coverageTodd Blanche • 20 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 48 words • 100.0% coverageThe New York Times • 14 words • 100.0% coverageThe New York Times • 14 words • 0.0% coverageThe New York Times • 12 words • 0.0% coverageThe New York Times • 15 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Grace Meng

100%flagged-word coverage
31 attributed words19% of attributed speech98% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice+28.8 ptsWriter: 71.2%Grace Meng: 100.0%100.0%Politically Left Leaning B-21.8 ptsWriter: 21.8%Grace Meng: 0.0%0.0%Unattributed Quote-10.9 ptsWriter: 10.9%Grace Meng: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.