A federal judge flayed President Trump and the Justice Department Monday for their handling of his lawsuit against the IRS, saying they tried to pull a fast one and abused the court in an attempt to create his anti-weaponization payout fund.
Judge Kathleen Williams said the case was part of a pattern of Mr. Trump “misusing the courts to serve political purposes.”
She said the settlement is null, and she barred the president and his family from citing it as a legal authority for future actions.
She also ordered that her findings be used in ethics complaints against acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, referred one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers to the Florida Bar for an investigation and barred another from attempting to file briefs in the federal court in southern Florida.
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“The court finds that this matter was brought for an improper purpose — to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact,” the Obama appointee wrote.
The action came on a $10 billion lawsuit Mr. Trump had filed against the IRS after a contract employee during his first term had leaked his secret tax information to The New York Times.
Mr. Blanche agreed to a settlement with Mr. Trump, his boss, that called for the president to drop the lawsuit in exchange for the Justice Department creating a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that was to pay “victims” of the Biden administration’s DOJ.
The defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, mob intrusion on the Capitol were seen as the likeliest candidates for payouts. Mr. Trump agreed not to take any compensation.
After the fund drew broad denunciations, including from Republicans on Capitol Hill, Mr. Blanche said he was scrapping the idea.
But Trump opponents rushed to Judge Williams to ask her to officially nullify the agreement.
She was viciously derisive in her ruling Monday, repeatedly putting the word “settlement” in quotes and questioning the entire chain of events that led to the agreement.
She said it was unprecedented for Mr. Trump, the president, to sue his own government agency, the IRS, and then have a separate agency under his purview, the DOJ, handle the matter.
She had appointed an outside lawyer to advise her on the issues involved. But four days later, without addressing those concerns, DOJ and the president’s team announced they had settled, created the fund, and were dismissing the case.
Mr. Blanche had insisted that the settlement was standard business. He pointed back to one reached by the Obama administration’s Agriculture Department with American Indian farmers, who said they had faced years of discrimination in loan assistance applications.
Judge Williams rejected that comparison, saying the case involved a decade-long negotiation between adverse parties. She said that was “in stark contrast” to the 109-day sprint to settlement for Mr. Trump and Mr. Blanche.
She pointed out that Mr. Trump waited to file his lawsuit until he was back in the White House and had Mr. Blanche, who previously served as one of his personal lawyers, in the DOJ.
She said it was “risible” to suggest they weren’t all acting to advance Mr. Trump’s interests.
“This action was never about a party seeking judicial resolution of a legal issue or a factual dispute,” she wrote. “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.”
Judge Williams ordered that a copy of her ruling be sent to the bar in New York and the District of Columbia, where Mr. Blanche currently faces disciplinary complaints.
Mr. Trump has nominated Mr. Blanche to be attorney general. His confirmation hearing is slated for Wednesday, and the settlement will likely come up in that proceeding.
Judge Williams also referred Alejandro Brito, a Trump lawyer in Florida, to the state bar there. And she said Daniel Z. Epstein, another Trump lawyer who is not admitted to practice in the federal court in southern Florida, will be barred from seeking guest admission for a year.
The White House referred an inquiry about the settlement to Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers.
The Washington Times has reached out to Mr. Brito and the Justice Department.
