Former Judges Call For Investigation Of Trump's IRS Immunity
35 Former Federal Judges Ask District Judge To Investigate Trump's IRS Immunity And 'Anti-Weaponization Fund'
Earlier this month, we reported that President Donald Trump withdrew a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over his tax returns getting leaked while the FBI was investigating him, and that, according to the Justice Department, in settling the case, Trump was granted a nearly $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — to essentially pay reparations to defendants of the MAGA variety who claim they were unfairly prosecuted for various crimes — and he and his family members were granted immunity from any future IRS investigations regarding any past tax-related claims. Do both aspects of the alleged settlement indicate willful and permissive corruption? Of course. Does this administration ever really care how deeply corrupt it appears to be? Of course not.
Well, the anti-weaponization fund — which many are panning as a slush fund — has already received plenty of pushback, including multiple lawsuits, with Capitol police suing to end it before Jan. 6 rioters start benefiting from it, and Democratic state officials planning to impose a 100% tax on any state resident to receive payments from it.
As for the IRS immunity, Trump isn’t getting away with that bright red flag without pushback either. In fact, a group of a few dozen retired federal judges is asking U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of South Florida to investigate whether or not the unusual deal to end Trump’s lawsuit was an act of fraud in itself.
From the Washington Post:
The Justice Department has said Trump will get an apology but no money from the fund. As part of the agreement, the IRS is barred from pursuing unpaid tax claims against Trump, members of his family or his businesses that arose before the deal was reached.
The 35 former judges, appointed by presidents of both parties, wrote in Wednesday’s filing in federal court in Florida that the plaintiffs misled the court by not disclosing any settlement in their notice to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit.
“The purported ‘settlement’ that the parties never placed before this Court raises profound questions about the parties’ candor toward the Court and manipulation of the judicial system, which threatens to undermine confidence in the administration of justice,” the judges wrote.
There you have it, folks — 35 former federal judges are engaging in a bipartisan effort to block Trump from using the position of his office to manipulate himself above the law and beyond accountability, which, by the way, current federal judges have also been doing since the start of his abysmal second term. And they’re not only going after the IRS immunity, but the so-called weaponization fund as well.
After all, when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the fund, he and the DOJ made it seem like the money was coming from the settlement, which more people might have been daft enough to believe if not for the exact dollar amount, which happens to be $1. 776 billion. One would have to be as dense as a MAGA supporter to believe a court of law would agree to a settlement amount that perfectly represented the year the U.S. was founded, 1776.
Clearly, it’s taxpayers who are footing the bill for that fund.
More from the Post:
The former judges asked the court to utilize a rule that would allow Williams to set aside the judgment and reopen the case for a “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.”
The former judges argued that Trump and the federal government is improperly using the IRS lawsuit “to allow a ‘commission’ controlled by the President to dole out $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars without constitutional or congressional authority” and to obtain “unlawful private benefits to the President and his family” by barring any audits of prior taxes.
Parties to the lawsuit, the former judges claimed, “have plainly tried to shield this conduct from necessary judicial scrutiny by short-circuiting” Williams’s examination into whether the lawsuit was “in fact an actual case or controversy.”
The list of signatories includes retired U.S. district court judges, former magistrates and bankruptcy court judges and five retired federal appeals court judges. They are represented by the nonprofit group Democracy Defenders, Susman Godfrey, and Platkin L.L.P.
So, again, current federal judges have spent the last year and a half ruling that the president is moving unlawfully, and now, nearly three dozen former federal judges are essentially saying the same.
They can’t all be “rouge judges” picking on a poor, perfectly innocent president, y’all.
We gotta start choosing better, more honest leaders, good people!
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35 Former Federal Judges Ask District Judge To Investigate Trump's IRS Immunity And 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' was originally published on newsone.com
