Ex-judges mount bid to upend ‘unprecedentedly fraudulent’ Trump ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — Nearly three dozen former federal judges appointed by presidents from both parties have joined a growing legal effort to upend the Trump administration’s newly created $1.776 billion fund for people who say they were wrongly targeted by the government in the past.

The retired jurists are asking a judge in Miami to reverse her decision last week dismissing an extraordinary lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump, one of his adult sons and the Trump Organization against the Internal Revenue Service that resulted in a settlement through which the controversial fund was created.

The 35 judges say the lawsuit, which had raised questions about whether it was legally sound given the fact that Trump was both a plaintiff and, as president, the head of the Executive Branch, in which the IRS defendants exist, “is itself a fraud on the court.”

The settlement in the case, the former judges say, “was not, and never will be, legally justified.” They pointed to the fact that the laws invoked by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to establish the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” require “the existence of a legitimate litigation and not, as here, one that is collusive, feigned, or fraudulent.”

By reopening the case, the judges told US District Judge Kathleen Williams, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, that she can look into whether she “was deceived, including with respect to the existence of an underlying case or controversy and any purported arms-length negotiations undertaken to resolve it.”

Williams was set to look closely at whether she had the authority to oversee the lawsuit at all before she was abruptly informed last week that Trump no longer wanted to pursue it. As she agreed to formally close the case, the judge criticized the way in which the litigation had come to an end, zeroing in on the fact that such issues remained unresolved.

The Justice Department, she said at the time, had not “filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed.”

The coalition of judges accused Trump and the Justice Department, which represents the government in court, of using “a collusive lawsuit” to reach the settlement, which also includes a provision shielding Trump, his family and his business from being investigated by the government in the future over potential civil wrongdoing.

Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, said in a statement Wednesday that “it is a routine move for plaintiffs to dismiss cases without referencing any settlement.”

“This motion is frivolous and there is nothing improper about this agreement,” she added.

Among the group of judges are former members of the federal bench from across the ideological spectrum who served on both trial-level courts and appeals courts. One of them, former George H. W. Bush appointee Ursula Mancusi Ungaro, served for a time alongside Williams.

Also included is former Judge John Tinder, who was succeeded on a Chicago-based federal appeals court by now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and retired Judge Michael Luttig, a vocal Trump critic who was appointed to a Richmond-based appeals court by Bush.

“The unprecedentedly fraudulent scheme here more than warrants voiding the dismissal,” the judges wrote.

The judges’ request on Wednesday adds to a growing pushback in court to the new fund as the administration also faces political pressure from some Republicans over it.

Three lawsuits were brought last week in federal courts in Washington, DC, and Virginia seeking to halt the administration from moving forward with implementing its plans for the fund. Those cases argue the fund is unlawful because it may dole out money to people who participated in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and finance various paramilitary organizations in the country, and that it violates federal transparency laws, among other things.

In the request made Wednesday to Williams, the judges don’t raise those types of claims but instead present her with a simple proposition: “The Court was deceived.”

Reopening the case, the judges say, “will allow judicial review of the extraordinary – and historically unprecedented – circumstances presented by this litigation and by the collusive ‘settlement’ that invokes this litigation as the legal justification for its terms.”

“As long as the court appropriately exercises its authority to reopen the case, it would preserve the status quo and ensure that the ‘settlement’ provisions cannot be carried out while the court completes the inquiry that was derailed by the voluntary dismissal,” they told Williams.

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