Trump’s slush fund is no better than Obama’s

President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion settlement with his own Justice Department, creating a fund that can be distributed to the president’s allies, stinks to high heaven. But Democrats have little standing to complain. They wrote and for decades followed the “sue and settle” playbook with which they sluiced money nefariously to allies to shape policy and collect taxpayer-funded payouts.

Passed with the best of intentions in the 1970s, the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act all contained “citizen suit” provisions empowering everyday Americans to sue in federal court when they believed an agency had failed to follow the law or act as required by statute. These laws also made federal agencies pay successful plaintiffs’ costs and legal fees.

In theory, these provisions are a tool for good government, allowing citizens to ensure the executive branch enforces the law. (If immigration laws had citizen suit provisions, our country would