A federal judge issued a blistering 56-page ruling Monday finding that President Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, the vehicle used to create a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, was never a genuine legal dispute at all. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams concluded the parties were never truly adverse, sanctioned Trump's attorneys, and referred multiple lawyers to their respective state bars for potential discipline.
The ruling lands just days before Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is set to appear before the Senate for his confirmation hearing to serve as attorney general, a hearing now shadowed by the judge's suggestion that Blanche himself should face professional discipline.
The core finding is straightforward and damaging: there was no real case. Trump sued his own administration in January over the leak of his tax returns. By late May, the two sides had struck an agreement to create the anti-weaponization fund. Intervenors then asked Judge Williams to reopen the matter, arguing the settlement tainted the proceedings. Williams agreed, and then some.
The ruling dismantles the premise that Trump's $10 billion case against the IRS was an ordinary piece of litigation. Williams wrote in her opinion that the suit lacked the constitutional requirement of adverseness between the parties, the basic ingredient that gives a federal court jurisdiction to hear a case.
"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."
Williams found that the president did not pursue his claims until he returned to the White House and had installed his former personal lawyer, along with the former lawyer of putative beneficiaries of the fund, into senior DOJ positions. The judge refused to separate Trump's role as president from his role as plaintiff.
"The Court declines to adopt or accept the credulous exercise of divorcing President Trump's current job title from an understanding of what happened here."
That line cuts to the heart of the matter. A president who controls the executive branch sued an agency within the executive branch, and the agency, staffed by his appointees, agreed to settle on terms favorable to the president. Williams called it what she saw: one party controlling both sides of the litigation.
Beyond the settlement itself, the ruling zeroed in on a DOJ memo signed by Blanche. That memo, as characterized in the ruling, would "forever bar and preclude" the government from taking any action related to Trump's past tax returns. The protection extended to Trump's businesses and family members, barring any government entity from investigations or actions against the president.
Williams called this a "blanket grant of immunity" and said agreeing to such a demand was "wholly incompatible with the duties of DOJ attorneys... to enforce the law and protect the public interest."
The judge framed the constitutional problem in sharp terms:
"Whether Executive Branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax monies for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this Court. The question is whether the Parties could do so by claiming to be adverse and engaging the legitimacy of a court proceeding. The answer is a resounding 'no.'"
Williams also raised the possibility that potential millions in tax relief flowing to the sitting president could violate the Domestic Emoluments Clause, the constitutional provision barring a president from accepting payments beyond his salary. The ruling appears to flag this concern without making a definitive finding.
The consequences for the lawyers involved are concrete. Williams sanctioned Trump's attorneys on the case and referred Alejandro Brito, one of Trump's lawyers, to the Florida bar for consideration of disciplinary action. She directed the court clerk to alert the New York bar about Blanche, citing ongoing disciplinary proceedings already underway there. The clerk was also directed to alert the D.C. bar regarding Associated Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who is admitted to practice in the District.
Williams described Woodward in the ruling as the "former lawyer of persons who are putative beneficiaries of the 'Anti-Weaponization Fund'", a reference that critics have connected to defendants who participated in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Some feared the fund would be used to compensate those individuals.
The judge did not mince words about the attorneys' conduct. She wrote that the suit was "brought for an improper purpose, to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a 'settlement' that had no viable basis in law or fact." She added that "perhaps the most startling misstatement advanced by Plaintiffs is their characterization of this case as 'ordinary.'"
Blanche had already stated, following backlash that included senators within Trump's own party, that the DOJ was "not moving forward with the fund. Period." But the Blanche memo barring investigations into Trump's tax returns appears to be a separate matter from the fund itself, and the ruling's practical effect on that memo is not spelled out.
It also remains unclear to what extent the ruling actually blocks the anti-weaponization fund from moving forward. The DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment. And the article notes that the administration may have alternative mechanisms, including an existing pot of money for legal settlements, to funnel resources to allies without relying on a court-blessed arrangement.
That possibility is worth pausing on. If the executive branch already had the independent power to create such a fund, the entire lawsuit may have been an exercise in seeking judicial cover for a political decision. Williams essentially said as much, writing that the parties' effort to grab federal funds was not the same as "recounting their proficiency in the art of the deal they negotiated." Adverseness, she wrote, cannot be obtained "merely by affixing the labels 'plaintiff' and 'defendant' to the parties."
The timing could not be worse for Blanche. His Senate confirmation hearing to become attorney general is set for just days after this ruling dropped. Senators will now have a 56-page federal court opinion in hand, one that questions his professional conduct, flags existing New York bar proceedings, and accuses the DOJ under his watch of abandoning its duty to enforce the law and protect the public interest.
The DOJ's silence in the immediate aftermath speaks volumes. No defense of the settlement's legal basis. No pushback on the collusion finding. No explanation of the memo's scope.
It would be easy to dismiss this ruling as a single Obama- or Biden-appointed judge taking a shot at the Trump administration. But the underlying principle should trouble anyone who believes in limited government, separation of powers, and the rule of law.
The executive branch suing itself, settling with itself, and using the resulting agreement to direct nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds and grant blanket immunity from future investigation is not conservative governance. It is the kind of self-dealing that conservatives have rightly condemned when other administrations attempted far less.
The backlash from Republican senators that preceded Blanche's retreat on the fund suggests this concern is not confined to the left. When members of the president's own party raise objections, and a federal judge then issues a 56-page opinion documenting why the arrangement lacked any legitimate legal foundation, the response should not be to dismiss the messenger.
Williams's ruling raises a serious Emoluments Clause question. It documents a DOJ that, under Blanche's leadership, signed away its own enforcement authority over the president's tax returns, extending that shield to his businesses and family. And it finds that the entire lawsuit was constructed to give judicial legitimacy to an outcome the parties had already arranged.
None of that is ordinary. The judge was right about that much.
Taxpayers deserve a government that fights for their interests in court, not one that stages a lawsuit, casts itself as both plaintiff and defendant, and walks away with $1.776 billion and a promise never to look too closely at the books.
