• Orders punishment for attorneys involved in lawsuit
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
A federal judge, Kathleen Williams, yesterday said a controversial lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sought to “manipulate the judicial process” and that he acted in bad faith in bringing it.
The US District Judge therefore ordered sanctions for the attorneys involved in the lawsuit, which led to an attempt to create the now-defunct $1.8 billion “anti-weaponisation” fund for allies of the president. It was also used to justify a Trump administration order giving Trump and his businesses amnesty for any past tax issues.
Williams’ 56-page opinion blasted the behaviour of both the Justice Department, arguing that the administration’s response to the case disregarded DOJ policies and potentially the law and of the private attorneys who brought the lawsuit on Trump’s behalf.
“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,” the judge wrote.
She ordered that her opinion be submitted to attorney disciplinary boards in New York and Washington, DC, that are currently reviewing pre-existing professional ethics complaints against acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, a CNN report said.
“In abdicating its responsibility to zealously defend the interests of the United States, the government entered into a ‘settlement’ that deviated from its litigation posture in similar actions, disregarded DOJ policies, and accomplished objectives beyond those authorized, as well as those specifically prohibited, by law,” Williams wrote.
The judge also referred one of the private attorneys who represented Trump in the case to the Florida Bar for potential disciplinary proceedings and blocked another lawyer who represented Trump from entering court appearances in the Southern District of Florida for the next year.
Her order indicates that the retired judges who argued she should scrutinise the deal could be entitled to having their legal fees covered.
A spokesman for Trump’s private legal team said: “The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organisation to the New York Times, ProPublica and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people. President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”
Though the practical impacts of the ruling may be limited since the lawsuit was withdrawn months ago and the administration had already abandoned the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponisation Fund” that came out of it, the order nonetheless amounts to a scathing rebuke and tees up a politically uncomfortable line of questioning for Acting Attorney General, Blanche, as he faces the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
The judge added: “The president may be the functional “dominus litus” of the executive branch, but as a party to a civil suit, he, as well as all the parties and lawyers before a court, are bound by the rules. Ensuring that our courts are used only for the express purpose created by the Constitution is the obligation of every judge and an obligation that this Court must discharge in light of the matter before it.”
The suit against the IRS and Treasury Department in January accused the federal agencies of a failure to prevent a leak of the president’s tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020.
In May, however, the administration announced that it was settling the case and creating a fund to compensate people who believe they’ve been mistreated by the criminal justice system.
The fund was quickly shelved amid bipartisan backlash, though the Trump administration has said it intends to proceed with a separate element of the deal affording Trump and family members protection from audits.
From the start, the judge had appeared skeptical of the complaint and assigned a group of attorneys to determine whether there was a conflict in the case since, as sitting president, Trump was suing “entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.”
