A federal judge ruled Monday that President Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS was an improper exercise in self-dealing, and barred him from claiming that the sweeping tax protections he walked away with came out of a legitimate settlement, the New York Times reported.
Judge Kathleen M. Williams did not explicitly kill the deal Trump cut with his own government, which amounts to amnesty from any investigation into tax returns he, his family and their businesses have already filed. But her scathing 56-page ruling out of federal court in Miami laid bare what the negotiations between Trump's personal lawyers and senior Justice Department officials actually were.
"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," Williams wrote.
She was blunt about who was on which side.
"It is risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the Parties," she wrote.
Williams noted that for the 109 days the case was open, no attorney representing the United States filed an appearance or a single document. Trump, she wrote, controls the IRS and the Treasury Department, and his own executive order bars government employees from advancing any legal position that contradicts his.
At one point she quoted Trump back at himself. "I'm suing myself," he said last October.
The ruling came two months after the Justice Department released a pair of documents presented as formal agreements settling the suit, which stemmed from the leak of Trump's tax returns during his first term. One granted Trump, his family and his businesses wide-ranging immunity from tax inquiries. The other created a $1.776 billion fund to compensate Trump allies who say they were victims of government weaponization.
Williams was unimpressed by the number. The figure "speaks of a 'branding' effort rather than a deliberate and thoughtful calculation of damages," she wrote in a footnote.
After an outcry from Republicans on Capitol Hill, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department would not move forward with the fund. He said Trump's protections from IRS scrutiny would remain in place.
Williams also referred Trump's attorney to the Florida Bar for potential disciplinary proceedings.
She closed with, "In sum, the facts before this Court demonstrate there was never adverseness between the Parties; there was never a case or controversy; and there was never a question as to who would prevail."
