US judge overturns Trump’s deal to resolve IRS lawsuit in scathing ruling | Donald Trump

A federal judge on Monday overturned a deal between the government and Donald Trump and his sons over the leak of his tax returns. The judge lambasted the government and the president’s lawyers for using the legal process to try to concoct a deal beneficial to the president.

The ruling by U.S. Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida blocks a widely criticized deal between the government and the president’s lawyers reached earlier this year to resolve a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Trump and his sons over the leak of the president’s tax returns. The government never responded to the lawsuit and later announced it would settle the dispute by creating a $1.8 billion slush fund to compensate victims of “arming the government” and granting the president, his family and related entities immunity from tax audits.

Amid a bipartisan backlash, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that the Justice Department was eliminating the fund, but the tax immunity provisions remained in effect.

In her ruling Monday, Williams, who was appointed to the bench by Barack Obama, said there had never been any real controversy in the case — a prerequisite for any trial — since Trump controlled the Treasury Department. She also sanctioned Trump’s lawyers for their conduct in court.

“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the parties and attorneys in filing it make clear that it was an attempt to use the court to lend some legitimacy to an agreement to grant immunity to individuals and entities affiliated with the President and to appropriate billions of American taxpayer dollars to redress grievances not defined in the statute,” she wrote.

“The court finds that this case was brought for an improper purpose: to obtain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact,” she added.

His decision prevents both Trump, his sons, the companies and the government from “using, offering, admitting or citing” anything from the so-called settlement agreement in any type of proceeding.

Monday’s ruling comes after Williams took the extraordinary step of reopening the case at the request of a group of retired federal judges. She previously closed the case after Trump voluntarily withdrew his claims once the deal was reached.

In his 56-page ruling, Williams presented evidence explaining why it was clear the lawsuit was filed in bad faith and the outcome was collusive.

For example, one of Trump’s lawyers, Daniel Epstein, never attempted to seek permission to appear in the case in the Southern District of Florida — something he had done in other cases — and Williams took that as a sign that he never intended to pursue the case.

She also noted that the Justice Department never attempted to answer obvious questions about whether such an agreement ran afoul of the emoluments clause of the constitution or a law preventing the president from ordering or terminating an audit of a particular taxpayer. And Williams said the fact that the government was able to unilaterally end the slush fund part of the deal suggested the parties were not actually opposed.

“Acting Attorney General Blanche’s apparent ability to speak on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants, sign a ‘settlement’ document on behalf of all parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were represented throughout this case.

Williams referred one of Trump’s lawyers, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida Bar for possible disciplinary action. And she blocked Epstein from appearing on behalf of clients in the Southern District of Florida for a year.

The plaintiffs, she said, should have known that the statute of limitations had expired on their claim and that the amount of money they were seeking was “not supported by the facts or the law.”

“This lawsuit was not brought to assert rights; it was brought to manipulate the legal process to obtain benefits not available in litigation because the parties were not on opposing sides,” she said.

She also criticized Blanche and Deputy Attorney General Stanley Woodward, close Trump allies, for their conduct in the matter, and referred them to the bars of New York and the District of Columbia, where disciplinary proceedings are underway against them.

Williams also ordered the parties to pay the legal fees of retired judges and other third parties who filed friend-of-the-court briefs.

Blanche is expected to be asked about the settlement when he faces lawmakers Wednesday in a confirmation hearing to become permanent attorney general.

Critics still want Congress to act to prevent the regulation from taking effect.

“The court’s decision is important, but it does not eliminate the need for congressional action to undo the entire agreement and prevent any attempts at similar presidential operations in the future,” said Brandon DeBot, policy director at the Tax Law Center.

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