Judge agrees to review Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘anti-arms’ fundExBulletin

A federal judge is reviewing a $1.8 billion fund created to pay people the president says were wronged by the federal government. China Pool/Getty Images AsiaPac .

. China Pool/Getty Images AsiaPac

A federal judge will review the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-arms fund” after a group of former federal judges questioned its legitimacy.

The fund was created following Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Instead of going to trial, Trump administration lawyers and the president’s personal legal team agreed to keep the fund funded by taxpayers.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Florida on Friday ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond to the motion filed by 35 former federal judges who argued that Trump was in a sense both the plaintiff and defendant in the case, having filed it as president and also the head of the executive branch overseeing the IRS. Thus, the judges wrote, the lawsuit “is itself a fraud on the court.”

The former judges, appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, wrote that the trial served as justification for the “looting” of American taxpayers. They described the case as some sort of “collusion” between the president’s lawyers and the federal government and asked the judge to reopen the case to determine whether a settlement was reached only after the court was “misled.”

Williams, appointed by former President Barack Obama, had initially granted dismissal of Trump’s lawsuit following the settlement, but, in light of the former justices’ motion, said the court had the “authority to investigate serious misconduct.”

It follows another Virginia judge temporarily freezing the fund, which Trump officials described as an attempt to compensate Trump allies, the Jan. 6 rioters and others who the president says were unfairly targeted.

That judge, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia, ordered Trump officials on Friday to stop stockpiling money to “ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed.”

Brinkema, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, set a June 12 hearing to debate whether the order should be extended.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond Saturday to a request for comment from NPR. Justice Department officials said on social media: “We will do everything in our power to free those who have been persecuted for political purposes. »

Legal expert: Fund “does not address real legal harms”

Taken together, the orders represent an initial legal setback for the fund, which has caused divisions within the Capitol, with critics describing it as a slush fund for Trump supporters who claim they were victims of political persecution.

Brinkema’s order to halt the measure was the result of a lawsuit filed by former Justice Department attorney Andrew Floyd and other plaintiffs, who claimed the nearly $2 billion was never approved by Congress and “rewarded and encouraged illegal behavior and facilitated a staggering abuse of taxpayer funds.”

Legal experts have expressed particular concern about the fund’s lack of oversight, in addition to the fact that the money has no connection to the allegations Trump alleged in his lawsuit against the IRS.

Adam Zimmerman, a law professor at the University of Southern California, told NPR that past examples of mass compensation funds run by former presidents, whether related to the Holocaust or the BP oil spill, have resolved large class-action lawsuits, which is not the case here.

“All of these cases involved identifiable injuries, inflicted on distinct groups of people, for violations of actual laws, under neutrally enforceable rules, often negotiated in the shadow of a class action or mass litigation,” Zimmerman said Saturday.

This fund, however, “does not address real legal harms.”

Zimmerman added: “He’s offering money to an unspecified group of people, who have never threatened or taken any legal action,” he said, describing it as “unlike anything we’ve seen in the history of the republic.”

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