WATCH: Bessent refuses to tell Senate panel whether Trump remains exempt from IRS audits

By — Fatima Hussein, Associated Press Fatima Hussein, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-bessent-refuses-to-tell-senate-panel-whether-trump-remains-exempt-from-irs-audits Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter WATCH: Bessent refuses to tell Senate panel whether Trump remains exempt from IRS audits Politics Jun 3, 2026 4:13 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to say Wednesday whether President Donald Trump and his family would still get immunity from IRS audits after the administration abandoned plans for a $1.776 billion compensation fund that would have benefited the president's allies. Watch Bessent's testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in our video player above. "There's continuing litigation, and I'm unable to comment on ongoing litigation," Bessent told lawmakers at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. WATCH: Justice Department scraps Trump's 'anti-weaponization fund' after pushback from Congress It was a frustrating answer for Democratic lawmakers looking to get answers from Bessent at a hearing ostensibly focused on the Treasury Department's budget and came a day after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche seemed to indicate that the portion of the settlement dealing with the IRS audit immunity would still be in effect for the Republican president. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. After several failed attempts to get Bessent to answer, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said, "It's been very clear you're dodging this and you're trying to use it as an excuse. It's just outrageous on behalf of the American republic." A White House representative did not respond to an Associated Press inquiry about the status of the settlement. Trump himself has not publicly commented on the compensation fund getting axed. The administration decided to scrap plans for the compensation fund, which could have included payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, after bipartisan outrage and a fierce political backlash that threatened to stall key elements of the White House agenda. Still, the status of the IRS immunity deal as part of the controversial settlement crafted to resolve Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS remained unclear, though Blanche said Tuesday that "nothing has changed" in that regard. Last week, a federal judge in Florida overseeing Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, who had initially dismissed the case, reopened the case and ordered the president's attorneys to respond to allegations that Trump abandoned his claims to avoid the court's scrutiny of the deal. When she initially dismissed the case, Kathleen Williams, the judge handling the lawsuit, admonished the Justice Department for a lack of transparency and said no agency "submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents