{"id":760,"date":"2026-05-30T20:08:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=760"},"modified":"2026-05-30T20:08:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:08:59","slug":"judges-ruling-could-unravel-trumps-biggest-legal-victory-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=760","title":{"rendered":"Judge’s ruling could unravel Trump’s biggest legal victory yet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I can\u2019t overstate the importance of Judge Kathleen Williams\u2019s decision on Friday to reopen Trump\u2019s $10 billion case against the I.R.S. <\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s new cringe ploy to save floundering festival ignites firestorm<\/a><\/p>\n

She said she wants to investigate \u201cgrievous allegations\u201d that the hasty deal to resolve it was \u201cpremised on deception,\u201d and she ordered Trump\u2019s lawyers to tell her by June 12 whether the lawsuit should be formally reopened because \u201cthe court was the victim of a fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cdeception\u201d and \u201cfraud\u201d Judge Williams refers to were allegedly carried out by Trump and his Justice Department.<\/p>\n

This is a big deal. <\/p>\n

Judge Williams\u2019s decision came in response to court papers filed on Wednesday by a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges who urged her to and dig into the details of the agreement to settle it. <\/p>\n

The judges\u2019 brief is also a big deal. They call it a motion for relief from judgement or order or, alternatively, <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t recall a similar instance of 35 former federal judges filing such a motion or amicus<\/em> (friend of the court) brief. <\/p>\n

In it, the judges argue that the parties\u2019 \u2014 Trump and the Justice Department\u2019s \u2014 so-called \u201csettlement\u201d agreement was made to circumvent the court \u2018s possible finding that the case presented no actual controversy, since Trump is on both sides of it. <\/p>\n

This, they conclude, constitutes a fraud on the Court.<\/p>\n

Let me quote the remarkable brief filed by the 35 former federal judges: <\/p>\n

\u201cThe parties have used this lawsuit\u2014which was never an adversarial proceeding over which the Court even had jurisdiction\u2014as a means to allow a \u201ccommission\u201d controlled by the President to dole out $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars without constitutional or congressional authority to do so, and to confer unlawful private benefits to the President and his family by purportedly prohibiting the United States from prosecuting any and all claims against them. <\/strong>
And the parties have plainly tried to shield this conduct from necessary judicial scrutiny by short-circuiting this Court\u2019s inquiry into whether the lawsuit is in fact an actual case or controversy by [seeking to dismiss the case] before they announced the \u201csettlement\u201d\u2014clearly in hopes of preventing the Court from ever completing that inquiry, which, if it comes out against the parties, will undo their collusive \u201csettlement.\u201d \u2026.<\/strong>
Accordingly, because \u201c[t]he parties\u2019 \u2018collusive\u2019 activity perpetrated a fraud on the judicial machinery itself, by fostering an appearance that the litigation involved adverse parties, when, in fact, it did not,\u201d the Court should void its prior dismissal and reopen the case to assess in due course whether a fraud occurred.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In her on Friday, Judge Williams said she wanted to investigate the circumstances surrounding Trump\u2019s efforts to settle the lawsuit in a way that benefited him and his allies.<\/p>\n

She added that a federal court rule requires attorneys to ensure that court filings are \u201cnot presented for any improper purpose\u201d and that \u201ca party\u2019s decision to file a frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of forcing a settlement may qualify as such an improper purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Idiocracy feels like a documentary\u2019: Trump event exposes scam playbook<\/a><\/p>\n

She also noted that the settlement appeared to run afoul of Department of Justice policies that require any settlements to be \u201cspecifically limited to the immediate subject matter of the claim.\u201d <\/p>\n

Finally, Judge Williams pointed out that a settlement addendum that waives all tax claims the U.S. may currently have against Trump, his two eldest sons, and his businesses and trusts was signed only by Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General. <\/p>\n

This could result in questions being asked of Blanche. Ultimately, it could result in his debarment or even imprisonment. Recall that Nixon\u2019s Attorney General, John Mitchell, was convicted of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. He served 19 months of a two-and-a-half to eight-year sentence in federal prison before being paroled. He was the first Attorney General in United States history to be incarcerated.<\/p>\n

Let me just say that there are forces in this country \u2014 specifically, Judge Kathleen Williams and the bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges \u2014 bent on preventing Trump from exercising authoritarian power. <\/p>\n

In so doing, they\u2019re displaying extraordinary courage and commitment to democracy and the rule of law. They are in effect representing all of us \u2014 our system of justice. <\/p>\n

We owe them a great debt of gratitude. (I\u2019m awarding them this week\u2019s Joseph N. Welsh Award for Courage in the Face of Tyranny.)<\/p>\n

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https:\/\/robertreich.substack.com\/.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more MAGA diehards cling to Trump as his popularity enters \u2018freefall\u2019: analysis<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can\u2019t overstate the importance of Judge Kathleen Williams\u2019s decision on Friday to reopen Trump\u2019s $10 billion case against the I.R.S. She said she wants to investigate \u201cgrievous allegations\u201d that the hasty deal to resolve it was \u201cpremised on deception,\u201d and she ordered Trump\u2019s lawyers to tell her b…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nJudge's ruling could unravel Trump's biggest legal victory yet - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=760\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Judge's ruling could unravel Trump's biggest legal victory yet - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I can\u2019t overstate the importance of Judge Kathleen Williams\u2019s decision on Friday to reopen Trump\u2019s $10 billion case against the I.R.S. 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