#authoritarian

The New York Times

The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

For nearly a century, the Supreme Court has made it difficult for a president to defy the clear text of a law passed by Congress. The court prevented Franklin D. Roosevelt from firing a leader of the Federal Trade Commission in 1935. It stopped the Reagan administration from defying a pollution investigation in 1988. It helped block Barack Obama’s attempt to expand immigration protections in 2016.

Its decision Monday allowing President Trump to fire F.T.C. commissioners represents a break with this history. The ruling dismisses longstanding precedent and effectively discards a 112-year-old law that said the president could fire commissioners only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” Mr. Trump can now fire commissioners in regulatory agencies simply because he wants to.

The majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts says that requiring presidents to have cause when they fire agency heads conflicts with the separation of powers in the Constitution. Because the Federal Trade Commission exercises executive power, it “must therefore be controlled by the chief executive,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. The majority has decided that Congress erred when it tried to insulate the F.T.C. and a couple of dozen other agencies from partisan politics by stipulating that its leaders be semi-independent. The ruling happens to suit perfectly the view of President Trump, who has said that Article II of the Constitution gives him “the right to do whatever I want as president.”

Perhaps the clearest sign of the ruling’s weakness is that the six justices in the majority — the six appointed by Republican presidents — do not even have the courage of their misguided convictions. In another ruling Monday, the court rejected President Trump’s bid to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board. In this case, the chief justice denied Mr. Trump’s bid to fire Ms. Cook with only a thin pretext of cause and no notice or hearing. Allowing the firing, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, would require an “interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.” The vote was 5 to 4, with the chief justice joined by the court’s three liberals and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The ruling sent the case back to the lower courts. Ms. Cook must receive due process to dispute the charges against her, and then a lower court will evaluate Mr. Trump’s claimed cause, the court ruled.

It is a good outcome. Though the case will continue, the court is effectively disposing of Mr. Trump’s bid to end the Fed’s independence. But why is the statute Congress enacted to protect the Fed from political interference worth upholding but not the law that established the F.T.C.? Justice Amy Coney Barrett, dissenting in the Cook case, pointed out that the two holdings are in “serious tension” with each other. “How can history support both a categorical rule and a carve-out?” she asked. There is no answer.

In truth, the main distinction is that many Republicans care more about a well-functioning Fed than about any other agency. Other agencies often regulate businesses and individuals in ways that free-market conservatives oppose. The Fed has regulatory powers too — which makes the carve-out all the more questionable — but also sets monetary policy and thus affects the health of financial markets. The decision effectively limits the president’s ability to roil those markets while giving him wide latitude to fire regulators who monitor corporate excess.

The logical flaws in the two opinions continue a worrisome pattern with the current Supreme Court. The six Republican-appointed justices do occasionally stand up to Mr. Trump’s abuses of power, including his attempt to enact unilateral tariffs (another policy, notably, that corporate America did not favor). But they are inconsistent in their defense of the Constitution. They give Mr. Trump wider latitude than they gave President Joe Biden or Mr. Obama.

Most worrisome, the Supreme Court is bestowing new powers on a president who often behaves as an aspiring autocrat, defying bipartisan tradition and even the law in the pursuit of personal authority.

The decision in the F.T.C. case springs from a conservative idea known as the unitary theory of the executive. The theory holds that nearly all power in the executive branch ultimately comes from the president. Voters have chosen only the president, along with the vice president, to run the executive branch. And the Constitution delineates three separate branches of government, which means that Congress should not be able to pass laws restricting the president’s ability to fire or hire officials working in regulatory agencies such as the F.T.C., according to this view.

Proponents of the unitary theory believe that the executive branch has mushroomed into a vast, unaccountable bureaucracy in which even a president can struggle to carry out policies. This concern is partly reasonable. Presidents of both parties have shared it in their own ways. Creating a nimbler and more responsive executive branch would be a worthy project.

Yet the unitary theory ends up being more radical, and more disruptive to the previous understanding of the separation of powers, than its advocates typically acknowledge. There is no question that Congress has some authority over regulatory agencies. The Constitution gives the Senate confirmation power for top positions, for example. Chief Justice Roberts says this merely gives the Senate the power to confirm or reject the appointees that the president prefers. But this view throws out nearly a century of practice that Congress put in place because it saw bipartisan composition as a strength for agencies.

The 1914 law creating the F.T.C., for example, stipulates that no more than three of the agency’s five commissioners can come from one political party and that the president can fire a commissioner only for certain reasons. When the Supreme Court unanimously blocked Roosevelt from firing a conservative F.T.C. commissioner in 1935, it cited this language. That precedent has governed every president since.

The current court, by contrast, looked at the same law and decided it was an unacceptable infringement on presidential authority. The decision is especially jarring coming from conservative justices who insist that they defer to the text of statutes and to the constitutional power of Congress. In this case, the justices ruled that both were irrelevant.

“Seldom, if ever, has this court worked such a profound bait-and-switch on a coequal branch,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. “For more than 90 years, Congress believed, with this court’s express approval, that it was allowed to create a workable government, including by granting certain agencies tasked with certain responsibilities some independence from presidential control.”

With the new ruling, the court is creating a super-empowered presidency — outside of the Fed, that is. A president will now be able to fire officials at a range of agencies that had previously had some protection from politics. Many of these officials have expertise in their fields. The list of such agencies includes the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

Central to the success of the American experiment over nearly 250 years has been the balance of powers among the three branches of government. Together, Mr. Trump and this Supreme Court are upsetting that balance. They are deviating from a tradition that has lasted more than a century, in which parts of the government operate with bipartisan leadership removed from everyday partisan politics, as Congress intended. The effect is to sideline Congress, which the authors of the Constitution viewed as the primary branch among equals. The Supreme Court on Monday created a government run by a very small number of people who work at either the Supreme Court or the White House.

Ternyata, pola pengasuhan tertentu juga dapat memengaruhi bagaimana anak-anak mengalami 'keraguan untuk berserah diri'.

Ada orang-orang (mungkin juga kita) yang menerima otoritas Allah secara intelektual, tetapi perilakunya tidak menunjukkan keberserahan diri secara spiritual. Ada mekanisme pola pikir yang tidak disadari, yang menunjukkan amarah dalam mempertanyakan takdir Allah yang terjadi padanya.

Padahal, konsep keberserahan diri berkaitan erat dengan bagaimana kita membayangkan Tuhan. Inilah inti dari Islam. Bahkan, seluruh ciptaan di alam semesta pun tunduk dan berserah diri kepada-Nya (QS. Ali 'Imran: 83). Dan kemampuan untuk percaya kepada Allah membutuhkan prasangka baik terhadap-Nya dan segala ketetapan-Nya.

Mengapresiasi secara rasional pentingnya ridho akan ketetapan Allah itu lebih mudah dibandingkan menginternalisasikannya. Keraguan untuk berserah diri umumnya bisa terjadi karena ada kesulitan dalam memahami maksud di balik ketetapan-Nya (yang mungkin menyakitkan) atau karena tidak mengenal dengan baik siapa Allah.

Persepsi yang tertanam sejak kecil bahwa hubungan manusia dengan Allah hanya sebatas taat/tidak taat menghasilkan bayangan tak disadari akan Tuhan yang tidak suka mengampuni kesalahan, keras, serta berjarak dengan hamba-Nya. Hal ini meningkatkan kerentanan seseorang dalam merasakan kecemasan (misal karena sangat takut salah) dan depresi.

Orang-orang yang tidak memahami mengapa seorang hamba bisa sangat taat kepada Allah, bisa jadi tumbuh dengan bayangan akan Tuhan yang keras. Padahal penghambaan yang paripurna menurut Ibnul Qayyim adalah hasil dari rasa cinta yang muncul secara alamiah ketika kita bisa mengenali dan memahami kesempurnaan Yang Maha Sempurna. Ketaatan akan terasa manis dan mudah ketika kita bisa menjaga rasa cinta kita pada-Nya.

Merawat rasa cinta merupakan elemen krusial dalam ketaatan. Dalam sebuah hadist riwayat Bukhari dan Muslim, dikatakan bahwa manisnya iman hanya bisa dirasakan seseorang yang memiliki tiga rasa:

Rasa cinta pada Allah dan Rasul-Nya melebihi cintanya pada apapun dan siapapun

Rasa cinta pada sesama hamba-Nya karena-Nya dan untuk-Nya

Rasa benci untuk kembali kepada kekufuran setelah Allah menyelamatkannya

Maka, ibadah adalah sebuah ekpresi dan deklarasi cinta seorang hamba. Dan kita sebagai hamba, tidak bisa mencintai-Nya tanpa terlebih dulu mengenali-Nya.

Kebalikan dari bayangan akan Tuhan yang keras dan sigap menghukum bak polisi, salah satu nama-Nya yang bisa membantu menumbuhkan kepercayaan pada anak-anak akan Tuhan yang menjaga mereka dengan penuh kasih adalah Allah Al-Wali.

Sehingga alih-alih melihat Islam hanya sebagai daftar apa yang dibolehkan dan tidak dibolehkan, anak-anak akan tumbuh dengan kesadaran bahwa hanya dengan petunjuk-Nyalah kita bisa merasa bahagia. Maka, hubungan mereka dengan Allah disandarkan pada kedekatan emosional, cinta, kepercayaan, dan keberserahan diri.

Meskipun Allah telah mengabarkan di Al Qur’an bahwa Dia adalah Wali kita, beberapa dari kita kesulitan dalam menginternalisasi rasa cinta-Nya, kedekatan-Nya, kasih dan dukungan-Nya kepada kita. Ini karena banyak orang justru menginternalisasi bayangan akan Tuhan bak polisi yg sigap menghukum.

Hal ini terjadi karena bagi seorang anak, untuk bisa menginternalisasikan nama Allah Al-Wali dibutuhkan pengalaman dilindungi, dicintai, dan didukung secara nyata lewat hubungannya dengan manusia lain. Terutama lewat hubungan pertama seorang anak, yaitu dengan orang tuanya. Kemelekatan seorang anak pada orang tuanya merupakan sebuah model kemelekatan hubungan sang anak dengan Rabb-nya.

Baik pola asuh yang otoriter maupun otoritatif bisa jadi sama-sama bertujuan baik. Hanya saja cara mendidiknya yang berbeda, sehingga hasilnya pun berbeda. Pola asuh yang otoriter cenderung lebih mengandalkan motivasi ekstrinsik dalam mengajarkan ketaatan. Sementara pola asuh otoritatif lebih mengandalkan membangun motivasi intrinsik dalam mengejar cinta Allah dan mengapresiasi usaha anak dalam melakukannya.

Otoriter vs Otoritatif

Teori parenting ini lalu diuji coba dalam sebuah survey atas 701 Muslim di Kanada. Tujuannya adalah untuk,

Memprediksi bayangan akan Tuhan yang mereka miliki

Memprediksi keraguan relijius dan keraguan untuk berserah diri yang dialami sebagai efek dari pola asuh yang (1) otoriter atau (2) otoritatif.

Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa persepsi akan orang tua yang otoriter berkorelasi dengan memiliki bayangan akan Tuhan bak polisi yang siap menghukum. Memiliki bayangan ini diasosiasikan dengan pengalaman akan keraguan relijius dan keraguan untuk berserah diri.

Menariknya, memiliki figur ayah yang otoriter secara langsung terhubung dengan pengalaman keraguan tersebut. Sementara memiliki figur ibu yang otoriter hanya terhubung secara tidak langsung dengan pengalaman tersebut melalui "distortion in God image".

Sementara persepsi akan orang tua dengan pola asuh yang otoritatif dalam menumbuhkan kesadaran akan bayangan Tuhan yang menjaga hambaNya dengan penuh kasih (Al-Wali), diasosiasikan dengan pengalaman keraguan relijius yang lebih sedikit dan keinginan untuk taat.

Penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa bayangan akan Tuhan yang tak disadari oleh seseorang dipengaruhi oleh pengalaman psikis di masa kecil dengan orang tua yang tidak selalu mengenakkan (bahkan dalam beberapa kasus bisa sangat menyakitkan). Bisa jadi ini merupakan penyebab utama dari berbagai isu psikospiritual yang kita lihat bentuknya di sekitar kita sebagai keraguan relijius maupun perilaku melawan ajaran Islam.

Menyadari bagaimana pengalaman emosional di masa kecil yang mungkin menyakitkan terkait bagaimana kita diasuh, sebenarnya bisa membantu kita merehabilitasi bayangan akan Tuhan yang tidak kita sadari kita miliki.

Membayangkan kembali Allah sebagai Al-Wali akan memudahkan kita untuk berserah diri dengan sepenuh hati kepada-Nya. Sehingga kita bisa memahami bahwa batasan-batasan berperilaku dari-Nya adalah bentuk ekspresi kasih sayang-Nya pada kita karena pengetahuan-Nya akan apa yang terbaik bagi kita lebih luas dari pemahaman kita sendiri.

— Ringkasan oleh The Muslim Gaze di X

“An authoritarian has absolutely no business whatsoever leading an organization that has adopted democratic centralism as its guiding principle. It is like expecting a fox to operate ethically when it has access to the hen house; it’s oxymoronic.”

Arinze Ture

Ready For Revolution

Totalitarianism and authoritarianism represent two distinct forms of nondemocratic rule, each defined by how power is organized, how society is controlled, and how deeply the state penetrates the lives of its citizens. While both systems reject political pluralism and concentrate authority in the hands of a leader or ruling elite, they differ fundamentally in scope, ambition, and ideological intensity. Totalitarian regimes seek to reshape society entirely, mobilizing the population around an all‑encompassing ideology, whereas authoritarian regimes aim primarily to maintain political power with minimal ideological transformation. Understanding these differences clarifies why totalitarianism is often considered the most extreme form of modern dictatorship and why authoritarianism remains the more common model of nondemocratic governance.

At the core of totalitarianism is the aspiration to control not only political life but also the social, cultural, and even psychological dimensions of human existence. Totalitarian states pursue a comprehensive project of societal transformation, typically anchored in a utopian ideology—whether racial, nationalist, or revolutionary. This ideological mission justifies the creation of a highly centralized, all‑powerful state that seeks to eliminate all independent institutions. Totalitarian regimes rely on mass mobilization, extensive propaganda, and a pervasive security apparatus to enforce ideological conformity. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China exemplify this model: each attempted to remake society according to a singular vision, demanding total loyalty and eliminating any perceived threat to the ideological project. In these systems, the individual is fully subordinated to the state, and private life becomes a legitimate target of political control.

Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, are defined less by ideological ambition and more by political control and regime stability. They restrict political competition, suppress dissent, and centralize authority, but they do not seek to transform society or mobilize the population around a grand ideological mission. Instead, authoritarian rulers often prefer political apathy, encouraging citizens to remain disengaged from public life as long as they do not challenge the regime. Economic and social institutions may retain some autonomy, and private life is generally less regulated than in totalitarian systems. Examples such as Francoist Spain, contemporary Russia, and many military dictatorships illustrate this model: the state demands obedience, not ideological devotion. Authoritarianism thus represents a more pragmatic, less intrusive form of nondemocratic rule.

The role of ideology marks one of the clearest distinctions between the two systems. Totalitarian regimes rely on a comprehensive, mobilizing ideology that seeks to reshape human behavior and identity. This ideology is not merely rhetorical; it structures the entire political order and legitimizes the regime’s expansive control. Authoritarian regimes, however, may employ ideology instrumentally or superficially, but it does not define the regime’s purpose. Their primary goal is to retain power, not to create a new society. This difference explains why totalitarian regimes often engage in mass campaigns, purges, and reeducation efforts, while authoritarian regimes typically rely on more limited coercion.

Another key distinction lies in the extent of state penetration into society. Totalitarian regimes attempt to eliminate all autonomous institutions—religious organizations, unions, cultural associations, and even family life become subject to state oversight. Authoritarian regimes, while repressive, often tolerate limited pluralism in nonpolitical spheres. Citizens may enjoy some degree of personal freedom as long as they avoid political opposition. This difference in scope reflects the divergent ambitions of the two systems: totalitarianism seeks total domination, whereas authoritarianism seeks political dominance.

Despite these differences, the two systems share important similarities. Both reject democratic norms, suppress opposition, and rely on coercion to maintain control. Both centralize authority in a leader or ruling elite, and both restrict civil liberties. Yet the degree and purpose of repression differ. Totalitarian repression is expansive and ideological; authoritarian repression is targeted and pragmatic. Totalitarianism demands active participation; authoritarianism often prefers passive compliance.

In sum, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes represent two distinct models of nondemocratic rule. Totalitarianism is characterized by ideological extremism, total social control, and the ambition to remake society, while authoritarianism focuses on political stability, limited pluralism, and the preservation of power. Understanding these differences is essential for analyzing the dynamics of modern dictatorships and the varied ways in which states can restrict freedom. While both systems undermine democratic principles, totalitarianism stands apart as the most radical and intrusive form of political domination.

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt, 1973.

Friedrich, Carl J., and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski. Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy. Harvard University Press, 1965.

Linz, Juan J. “An Authoritarian Regime: Spain.” Mass Politics: Studies in Political Sociology, edited by Erik Allardt and Stein Rokkan, Free Press, 1970, pp. 251–283.

Linz, Juan J. “Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes.” Handbook of Political Science, edited by Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby, vol. 3, Addison‑Wesley, 1975, pp. 175–411.

Moore, Barrington. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Beacon Press, 1966.

Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Tim Duggan Books, 2017.

The New York Times

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Has there ever been an episode of presidential corruption so blatant and threatening to constitutional order? Certainly not in modern times. President Trump’s Justice Department is using taxpayer money to create a $1.8 billion political slush fund. Ostensibly set up to compensate those who the department claims have “suffered weaponization and lawfare,” it will in fact reward loyalists willing to defy the law and commit violence on behalf of the president.

The fund manages to combine three of Mr. Trump’s most alarming behaviors. One, it is an obvious form of corruption, coming from a president who has used his office to enrich himself, his family and his allies. Two, the fund continues his pattern of using the Justice Department as an enforcer to punish his perceived opponents and protect his friends and allies. Three, the fund is his latest attempt to rewrite history about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.

It is worth pausing to put the fund into the larger context of Mr. Trump’s political project: He is destroying pillars of American democracy to empower himself. He claims elections are legitimate only if he wins. He uses federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute his perceived enemies. He purges his party of officials who defy him. He describes members of the other party and civil society as traitors and enemies. He incentivizes his supporters to break the law on his behalf and rewards them when they do. He directs his allies to change election rules to keep his party in power.

Mr. Trump’s project has not yet succeeded, at least not fully. Many Americans — in the judicial system, in Congress, in state governments and elsewhere — continue to stand up for democracy and oppose his autocratic ambitions. By now, though, nobody should have illusions about what he is attempting to do.

The fund’s existence is a story of political self-dealing. It is nominally the product of a flimsy personal lawsuit that Mr. Trump filed this year against the Internal Revenue Service, which he oversees, over the leaking of his tax returns during his first term. That lawsuit led to an absurd negotiation, in which the lawyers on one side worked for Mr. Trump the citizen and those on the other side worked for Mr. Trump the president.

Adding to absurdity, the government lawyers reported to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, who previously worked as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer. A federal judge in Miami helping to oversee the case, Kathleen Williams, pointed out that the two sides were not adversaries, which called into question the process. Even Mr. Trump acknowledged the situation shortly after filing the suit by saying, “I am supposed to work out a settlement with myself.”

Yet the talks proceeded because Mr. Trump’s Justice Department was in charge. Unsurprisingly, they led to a deal that was extremely favorable to him.

In exchange for the president’s dropping the suit against the I.R.S., both he and his supporters will receive government handouts. For Mr. Trump, the handout comes in the form of permission to have cheated on his taxes. The government has granted him and his family immunity from ongoing audits of his tax payments. He has a long history of using questionable accounting maneuvers, and the audits could have cost him more than $100 million, experts have said. Now they will cost him nothing.

For his supporters, the handouts will come from the slush fund. The Justice Department will tap a permanent stream of revenue that Congress created in 1956, known as the Judgment Fund, to settle lawsuits against the federal government. As Paul Figley, a former Justice Department official, noted, the new fund appears to be both legal and at odds with Congress’s intent. “It’s horrible policy,” Mr. Figley told The Times.

The department has allocated $1.8 billion for what it calls, in an Orwellian flourish, an Anti-Weaponization Fund and invited applications from people who have been targeted for “political, personal or ideological reasons.” Mr. Blanche — who holds his position as acting attorney general largely because of his willingness to use federal power in service of Mr. Trump’s personal whims — will appoint a five-member board, with congressional leaders given input on one of the five. Mr. Trump can fire any of the members at any time.

To understand who is likely to receive payments, look at who has previously received settlements from the Justice Department. Michael Flynn, who was briefly Mr. Trump’s national security adviser in 2017, received $1.25 million, even though he pleaded guilty to lying to F.B.I. agents. The family of Ashli Babbitt, who participated in the Jan. 6 riot, and whom federal agents shot as she and others approached the House floor, received nearly $5 million, even though investigators cleared the shooters of wrongdoing. The Trump administration is paying off people who committed violence and crimes, as long as they are Trump allies.

The fund’s timeline is the giveaway of how Mr. Trump plans to use it. The Justice Department said the fund would stop processing claims on Dec. 15, 2028, weeks before the president is to leave office, ensuring the money is distributed while he still holds the power to fire anyone who objects. The window is precisely the window of Mr. Trump’s authority.

Even some of Mr. Trump’s usual defenders are unhappy. Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, meekly said that he was “not a big fan” of the fund. Brian Morrissey, the Treasury Department’s general counsel, resigned within hours of the announcement, seven months after the Senate had confirmed him.

Providing payoffs is only part of the point. Another, according to Mr. Blanche, is “ensuring this never happens again.” What, exactly, is “this”? The evenhanded enforcement of the law.

The Trump administration has already fired federal agents who did their duties by investigating the president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Mr. Trump has issued blanket clemency to more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters, some of whom may soon receive payments. His Justice Department secured an indictment of James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, on dubious charges as retribution for his role in the investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s Russia ties. The fund continues the effort to turn law enforcement into a tool of raw political power.

The fund also encourages future lawlessness on Mr. Trump’s behalf. It sends the message that he will use his power not only to shield people who break the law from accountability but also to shower benefits on them. Just as punishment is a deterrent, rewards are an incentive.

After President Richard Nixon’s abuses in the Watergate scandal, Congress and the executive branch built rules and traditions to ensure that federal agencies, especially the Justice Department, operated in the public interest, rather than that of the president. Mr. Trump has tried to break this system. Once he is gone, it will need to be rebuilt, and better than before. He has exposed and exploited its flaws and gaps. Unless they are filled, Mr. Trump’s corruption and perversion of justice risk becoming the norm.

In the meantime, Americans should be cleareyed about what the president is doing. He is taking their money and showering it on criminals.

The New York Times

By Alan Feuer Andrew Duehren and Glenn Thrush

May 19, 2026

The Justice Department has granted President Trump, his family and businesses immunity from ongoing inquiries into their taxes, a potentially lucrative arrangement that could shield the president from significant financial liability.

The provision, quietly inserted on Tuesday as a supplement to a remarkable deal that also created a $1.8 billion compensation fund aimed at benefiting Mr. Trump’s allies, protects the president, his relatives and his businesses from pending audits and tax prosecutions.

The one-page document, signed by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” pending tax claims against Mr. Trump, his family members and businesses.

The provision invited immediate criticism as tax experts raised the possibility that it was illegal.

That the addendum to the deal was posted, without fanfare, on the department’s website belied its bare-knuckled audacity. It revealed the determination of Mr. Trump and his appointees to ram through maximalist measures with minimum outside scrutiny at a moment when they still have uncontested control of government.

The provision was the latest in a series of maneuvers this week that blurred the all-but-vanished boundary between official department business and the private interests of a president intent on using his power to extract financial gain from the federal government for himself and his allies.

A day earlier, Mr. Trump agreed to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. in exchange for the establishment of a fund for people he believes were wronged by federal investigations or prosecutions.

Justice Department officials had in part defended the creation of the fund by pointing to the fact that Mr. Trump and his family members would not be paid by it.

But protection from audit could be quite financially beneficial for Mr. Trump, who has always said that there was no wrongdoing in his tax filings. In 2024, The Times reported that a loss in an I.R.S. audit could cost Mr. Trump more than $100 million.

It is unclear if that examination has concluded or if Mr. Trump, his family members or affiliated entities are under other audits. I.R.S. procedures call for the mandatory audit of the president’s tax returns annually.

Neither the Justice Department nor the I.R.S. responded to requests seeking comment. The top lawyer at the Treasury, Brian Morrissey, resigned on Monday after the Justice Department announced the settlement with Mr. Trump.

Federal law prohibits the president, vice president and other executive officers from instructing the I.R.S. to start or stop specific audits. But that broad prohibition appears to include a carve out for the attorney general.

Brandon DeBot, a senior attorney adviser at New York University’s Tax Law Center, said in a statement that the audit protection may still be illegal.

“The I.R.S. would need to act to make the release of claims effective, which could raise additional questions about whether there has been unlawful political interference in the audit process,” he said. “The settlement and general release of claims is a breathtaking abuse of the tax and legal system.”

The disclosure of the provision came as blowback appeared to be mounting over the creation of the fund, including from a few Republican lawmakers typically wary of incurring Mr. Trump’s wrath.

Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, offered rare criticism of the president, saying he “was not a big fan” of the fund and adding that he did not see a “purpose” to it.

The New York Times reported last week that Mr. Trump’s talks with the Justice Department and the I.R.S. had included a measure calling on the I.R.S. to drop any audits of the president, his relatives or businesses. But that provision did not appear in the nine-page agreement laying out the terms to dismiss the lawsuit, which the department released on Monday.

In January, Mr. Trump, along with two of his sons and the Trump family business, sued the Internal Revenue Service for at least $10 billion over the leak of their tax returns during the president’s first term. The Trumps argued that the I.R.S. should have done more to prevent a former contractor from disclosing tax information to The New York Times and ProPublica.

Even as the original nine-page agreement offered scant details of how disbursement would work or who would be eligible, it said that claimants could seek money from the government for having faced reprisals for “personal, political and/or ideological reasons.” It stated that a five-person commission would consider claims based on criteria like damages a person had incurred or any time they spent in federal custody.

The main agreement also indicated that claims would largely be handed out in secrecy, requiring the fund managers to provide the attorney general on a quarterly basis with a “confidential written report” of those who received any money. The fund would stop processing claims no later than Dec. 1, 2028, just weeks before Mr. Trump is scheduled to leave office.

Frank Bisignano, the chief executive of the I.R.S., signed the original, nine-page settlement. The provisions granting Mr. Trump immunity from existing audits, though, was signed only by Mr. Blanche, who has stepped up carrying out Mr. Trump’s campaign of retribution against his enemies.

During an appearance before a Senate appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday, Mr. Blanche defended the fund.

At one point, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, repeatedly accused Mr. Blanche of behaving more like a Trump defense lawyer than an independent guardian of the public interest.

Mr. Blanche pushed back, asserting that he was “the acting attorney general.”

Mr. Van Hollen replied, “Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president’s personal attorney, and that’s the whole problem.”