Judge scolds Trump for improper self-dealing in $1.8 billion settlement of IRS lawsuit
TheGrio...
“There was never a case or controversy; and there was never a question as to who would prevail,” writes Obama-appointed Judge Kathleen M. Williams.
A federal judge laid into Donald Trump and his administration in a ruling on the U.S. president’s civil lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that was dismissed by the Justice Department in a so-called settlement that potentially saved Trump $100 million in liabilities and created a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” for his political allies.
“There is nothing ‘ordinary’ about this case,” writes Judge Kathleen M. Williams in her 56-page ruling against the Trump administration.
The district court judge, appointed by President Barack Obama in the Southern District of Florida, says the Justice Department’s decision to “settle” a $10 billion lawsuit that Trump filed against the IRS was improper.
The lawsuit filed in January by Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and their family business, the Trump Organization, accused the IRS of negligence and failing to prevent a former contractor, Charles Littlejohn, from illegally leaking his and his family’s tax returns to news outlets.
In May, Judge Williams expressed “serious concerns” about the legality of the case, given Donald Trump had “unassailable control over Defendants” as the commander in chief, and concerns about the statute of limitations. She ordered the parties to file legal memoranda of law to address her concerns. Instead, the DOJ moved to reach a “settlement” with Trump and his family business.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, agreed to create an “anti-weaponization fund” of $1.776 billion for individuals alleged to have been politically targeted by the federal government. Critics of the deal accused the Trump administration of masking the fund to reward those convicted by the Biden administration (which is named in the settlement) for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. Black advocates particularly took issue with the settlement as an insult to the decades-long fight for reparations for Black descendants of U.S. chattel slavery.
Following bipartisan political blowback, Acting AG Blanche announced that the anti-weaponization fund would no longer be dispersed.
Another major part of the settlement was an agreement not to move forward with IRS investigations into the Trump family’s taxes. Blanche, as acting attorney general, ordered the IRS to cease all pending and future probes.
However, Judge Williams accuses President Trump of self-dealing. She writes in her ruling, “The Court declines to adopt or accept the credulous exercise of divorcing President Trump’s current job title from an understanding of what happened here.”
She continued, “The issue before the Court is whether, instead, they ignored ethical norms, court rules, and legal authority to manipulate the judicial process.”
Williams accused Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization of “improperly” employing the IRS lawsuit to “justify a particular award in this matter—access to taxpayer funds and exemption from audits and other investigations—which was accomplished by leveraging control over Defendants.”
The federal judge ordered that the Trumps no longer make reference to the “purported” settlement agreement in “any judicial, administrative, regulatory, arbitration, or any other official proceeding as evidence of a ‘settlement’ reached in this matter.” However, it remains unclear if the ruling will prevent Trump and the companies associated with him from relying on the DOJ settlement to avoid IRS scrutiny. The New York Times reported that Trump, who has long evaded paying federal taxes, could have had to pay as much as $100 million in penalties.
“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law,” writes Williams.
“In sum, the facts before this Court demonstrate there was never adverseness between the Parties; there was never a case or controversy; and there was never a question as to who would prevail.”