That's Gonna Leave a Mark

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams just issued a ruling stating that Donald Trump, the Department of Justice, and the IRS committed a fraud on the court with their lawsuit, and subsequent "Settlement" creating a 1.7 billion slush fund.

A federal judge just nixed the settlement underlying Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion slush fund.

The fund was the result of an unprecedented deal that Trump made with himself after he dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for the unlawful leak of his tax returns in 2019. The honey pot payments were pitched as reparations, paid for by U.S. taxpayers through the Department of Justice, to virtually any right-winger that felt targeted by the previous presidential administration.

“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,” wrote U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in a 56-page order Monday.

Williams ruled that any entities affiliated with the slush fund settlement—including the president, the Treasury Department, and the IRS—were “prohibited” from using the details of the arrangement in any official capacity. She also referred Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida bar for possible professional discipline. 

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“These officials then negotiated on behalf of the United States, with his current lawyers, including his former White House Counsel, to reach a ‘settlement,’” Williams assessed. “It is risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the Parties.”

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But as Williams observed, the jaw-dropping components of the case—such as the billions of dollars in taxpayer funds proposed for undefined grievances, or the blanket immunities offered to Trump—were not put before the court. Instead, the question underlying the legality of the president’s slush fund centered around whether the entities engaged in the settlement arrangement, from government representatives to Trump’s personal attorneys, ever represented different parties while they pretended to engage in a legitimate court proceeding.

“The answer is a resounding ‘no’: the Lead Plaintiff and the Government are one, a fully realized unitary interest,” Williams wrote. 

I find it rather unlikely that the Florida Bar will take any action against Brito, they have been loath to involve themselves in closely related matters, and I believe that there is a good possibility that at least 4 Supreme Court members would be supportive of what is a naked fraud upon the court.

I am not entirely sure where it goes from here.