Judge's 'scalding' Trump takedown opens the door: 'Impeachment is next'

A progressive US senator on Monday welcomed a federal judge’s ruling that found President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service was an illegal act of self-dealing, while calling for the Republican to be impeached for a third time. Trump and his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, “acted in bad faith and for an improper purpose by ‘collusively filing a lawsuit with claims subject to multiple dispositive defenses solely to provide cover for a collusive settlement,’” US District Judge for the Southern District of Florida Kathleen Williams—who was appointed by former President Barack Obama—wrote in her 56-page ruling. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called Williams’ order “a scalding, blistering judicial opinion calling out Trump’s sham litigation, striking down his corrupt IRS immunity, and holding his sycophant lawyers to account.” “That’s a good start,” the senator said. “Impeachment is next.” Finding that “sanctions are appropriate here,” Williams referred Trump’s personal attorney Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar for “its consideration, review, and determination as to whether any disciplinary action is appropriate in light of the findings and rulings made in this order.” Williams also banned another one of the president’s personal lawyers, Daniel Epstein—who is not related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted child sex criminal and former close friend of Trump—from seeking admission to practice law in the Southern District of Florida for one year. The judge further found that acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche’s “apparent capacity to speak for both plaintiffs and defendants, sign a ‘settlement’ document on behalf of all parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case.” In January, Trump and his sons sued the Internal Revenue Service and US Treasury Department for $10 billion over the leak of the president’s tax returns by a former IRS contractor. Trump’s own Department of Justice (DOJ) then settled the case in May by agreeing to exempt the plaintiffs from future IRS audits and create a roughly $1.776 billion settlement slush fund for people claiming they were unfairly targeted by the government. Beneficiaries of the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” were expected to include January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrectionists, roughly 1,500 of whom were pardoned by Trump and dozens of whom have since been charged or convicted for serious crimes, including child sex crimes, rape, grand larceny, burglary, home invasion, gun violations, death threats against public officials, and fatal DUI incidents. Blanche has signaled that the DOJ will no longer pursue the creation of the slush fund. Williams wrote in her ruling that “certainly, a court should not be a forum for a party that cynically views a lawsuit as a vehicle to achieve a predetermined outcome: ‘I’m suing myself.” “President Trump did not pursue his claims until he once again occupied the White House and had appointed his former lawyer, and the former lawyer of persons who are putative beneficiaries of the ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund,c’ to prominent positions in the DOJ,” she continued. “These officials then negotiated on behalf of the United States, with his current lawyers, including his former White House counsel, to reach a ‘settlement.’ It is risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the parties.” “Even the fund amount—$1.776 billion—speaks of a ‘branding’ effort rather than a deliberate and thoughtful calculation of damages,” the judge added. A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team responded to Monday’s order in a statement asserting that “the IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization 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,” the statement added. Defenders of the rule of law welcomed Monday’s ruling, with Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, co-presidents of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, taking a swipe at Trump’s “brilliant idea of suing the government he runs and resolving the lawsuit with the creation of an illegal and unconstitutional nearly $1.8 billion slush fund, paid for at taxpayer expense and likely to be distributed to January 6 insurrectionists, among others, as well with as an immunity deal protecting Trump and his family from IRS investigation.” “Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was a willing participant in this fraud on the court and the American people,” the pair added. “If the Senate needed an additional reason not to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general, it just got it.”