President Donald Trump on Friday suffered a second major setback related to the nearly $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from which his allies stand to benefit.
A federal judge in Miami reopened Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, which he withdrew last week before the announcement of several agreements with the Justice Department. Among them were: no more auditing of the president, his adult sons, or his businesses (which are run by his adult sons), and the creation of the $1.776 billion fund for those, like the Jan. 6 rioters, who claim Democrats “weaponized” the government against them.
Judge Kathleen Williams wrote that she ordered the investigation into the de facto settlement amid claims that it was “premised on deception.” On Wednesday, 35 former federal judges had written to the court urging her to look into the matter.
Williams’ order came hours after a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia temporarily stopped the creation of the Justice Department’s fund.
In the four-page order, Williams, an Obama appointee, gave Trump a June 12 deadline to address “(1) the charges of collusion and whether the Parties are truly adverse; (2) the assertion that the dismissal in this case was premised on deception by the Parties; and (3) the question of whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the ‘victim of a fraud.’”
Former federal judge Shira Sheindlin, one of the nearly three dozen ex-judges who asked Williams to investigate, explained the situation on MS NOW.
“When you have a case in court, there has to be an actual case or controversy. Otherwise, the court does not have jurisdiction to even hear that case,” she began. “And if there’s no case, then there can’t be a settlement of that case. And if there can’t be a settlement of that case, then there can’t be a fund created by the settlement. And there can’t be any immunity for Trump and his sons to never have to have an audit of their taxes and maybe never pay those taxes. But none of that can happen if there’s no case.”
Sheindlin explained how Williams, during the proceedings, had questioned whether there really was an adverse party. Trump himself, Sheindlin also noted, had openly commented about negotiating with himself.
“But isn’t that a strange position to be in,” Trump said at a rally last December. “I’ve gotta make a deal. I negotiate with myself.”
“So that’s why she now is worried,” Sheindlin said. “But she was about to get briefs on this issue of whether there was a real case or controversy, and they didn’t want her to reach that. Not so much the merits; they didn’t even want her to decide that there wasn’t a case, because if there’s no case, there’s no settlement and no basis for the order.”
“Two days before the brief was due, they come up with this voluntary dismissal. And she says on the record, ‘Gee, there’s no settlement here. I note that there’s no settlement.’ Well, that’s because they didn’t tell her that there was indeed a settlement,” Sheindlin continued.
“No sooner did she put her pen on the paper and sign off on this voluntary dismissal, guess what happened? They announced the settlement, and she was duped. She was really duped. And so when we wrote that motion, we said, you know, ‘This is a fraud on the court. You have the power to investigate that.’ And that’s what she did just tonight.”
The White House referred the Daily Beast to an attorney for Trump, who did not immediately respond, nor did the Justice Department.
The two orders regarding the “weaponization” fund weren’t the only losses Trump had in federal court on Friday.
A District of Columbia judge ruled that Trump didn’t have the authority to add his name to the Kennedy Center without going through Congress. The same judge also ordered that the arts center not be shut down for renovations by July 5, as Trump had wanted.
In response, Trump issued a 582-word response via Truth Social, in which he seemed to concede that he would not continue his efforts to remake the storied performing arts center in his image.
“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” Trump wrote.
