The Courts Act
Two Judges Move.
35 Former Judges File.
The Fund Is Halted.
Everything We Documented Has Now Been Confirmed — In Open Court
In the ten days since the Anti-Weaponization Fund was announced, two federal courts have acted, 35 former federal judges from both parties have filed a fraud motion, and Judge Williams — the judge whose court was deceived — has opened a formal fraud inquiry. The legal noose we documented is now in the hands of the judiciary.
Judge Kathleen Williams made a striking turnabout Friday, reopening President Donald Trump's $10 billion case against the IRS and saying that she wanted to investigate "grievous allegations" that the hasty deal to resolve it was "premised on deception."
Asserting that she was "empowered to investigate serious misconduct" in a case before her, she ordered Trump's lawyers to tell her by June 12 whether the case should be formally reopened because "the court was the victim of a fraud."
She directed the president to file a response by June 12, laying out their responses to the former judges' allegations of "collusion" and "deception," and the question of whether the case should be formally reopened.
She pointed to reporting by the New York Times that described how the IRS had prepared a 25-page memorandum outlining defenses against the suit that the Justice Department did not take up in court. This is the most significant new detail in the entire record — the IRS had its own defense strategy ready, and the DOJ suppressed it to allow Trump to win a case against his own agency.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has ordered a temporary halt on all operations of the Trump administration's Anti-Weaponization Fund. The brief order says the administration cannot take any action "pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transfer" of any funds.
The TRO was entered after a January 6 prosecutor and others sued to block the fund. The suit directly mirrors the legal argument we documented — that the fund constitutes an unconstitutional appropriation of public funds for political purposes without Congressional authorization.
Some lawmakers were concerned the funds would be awarded to people involved in the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., told reporters he did not sign off on the creation of the fund and insisted that no taxpayer money should go to "any January 6 insurrectionist." "I do not think one penny of any fund should ever go to any January 6 insurrectionist that was in the Capitol," Flood said.
A Republican member of Congress publicly stating that no money from the fund should flow to January 6 defendants is significant — it confirms that even within Trump's own party, the fund's intended beneficiaries are indefensible as recipients of public funds.
Nearly three dozen former federal judges appointed by presidents from both parties have joined a growing legal effort to upend the Trump administration's newly created $1.776 billion fund. The retired jurists are asking a judge in Miami to reverse her decision dismissing the extraordinary lawsuit.
The 35 judges say the lawsuit "is itself a fraud on the court." The settlement in the case, the former judges say, "was not, and never will be, legally justified." They pointed to the fact that the laws invoked by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to establish the Anti-Weaponization Fund require "the existence of a legitimate litigation and not, as here, one that is collusive, feigned, or fraudulent."
The bipartisan nature of this filing cannot be overstated. These are not political actors. They are former judges — appointed by presidents of both parties — who concluded that the integrity of the federal judiciary had been so seriously compromised that they were compelled to act. When 35 former judges file a brief calling a presidential lawsuit "collusive from the start," it is the most authoritative possible statement that the analysis we published was correct.
The IRS Had A 25-Page Defense. The DOJ Suppressed It.
The IRS prepared a 25-page memorandum outlining its defenses against Trump's lawsuit. The Department of Justice — which was nominally representing the IRS as defendant — did not take up those defenses in court. Judge Williams specifically cited this reporting in her fraud inquiry order.
This single fact transforms the entire legal picture. We documented that the case had no genuine adversarial parties — that Trump controlled both sides. The IRS's 25-page defense memo proves that the IRS itself knew it had a case, prepared its arguments, and was then prevented from making them by the very DOJ that was supposed to represent it.
The DOJ's decision not to use the IRS's own defense arguments is not passive negligence. It is active suppression of a genuine defense on behalf of a nominal client — the IRS — in order to allow the opposing party — Trump — to obtain a favorable outcome against his own agency. That is the textbook definition of collusive litigation.
The 25-page memo also means that somewhere in the DOJ or IRS files, there is a document that sets out in detail exactly why Trump's case was legally vulnerable. That document — which the DOJ refused to use — is now evidence in a fraud inquiry. Judge Williams knows it exists. The 35 former judges know it exists. And Trump's lawyers must now respond to its existence by June 12.
Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the fund. Opponents have labeled it a massive "slush fund" for President Donald Trump's allies.
The bipartisan criticism — from within Congress and from former judges of both parties — eliminates any argument that opposition to the fund is politically motivated. When Republican members of Congress publicly refuse to support payments to January 6 defendants from public funds, and when former judges appointed by Republican presidents file a fraud brief, the scheme has lost the political cover it might otherwise have claimed.
The significance of 35 former federal judges filing a bipartisan brief calling a presidential lawsuit "collusive from the start" and "itself a fraud on the court" cannot be overstated. Federal judges — active or retired — do not make such allegations lightly. The standard for filing such a motion is the highest in the legal profession. These former judges concluded the evidence met that standard.
They argued the case was fraudulent and led to an improper settlement, and that the acting attorney general's order creating the Anti-Weaponization Fund was based on a fraudulent "judgment fund" that is not legitimate — because the laws invoked require "the existence of a legitimate litigation and not, as here, one that is collusive, feigned, or fraudulent."
The language "collusive, feigned, or fraudulent" comes directly from the Judgment Fund statute itself — meaning the former judges are arguing that by the plain text of the law Blanche cited as his authority, the fund he created has no legal basis. The authority claimed in the addendum destroys itself the moment the litigation it claims to implement is found to be collusive.
The Noose Was Always There. The Courts Have Now Picked It Up.
When we published the original analysis of Judge Williams' dismissal order in May — a document she wrote without knowing she was documenting a fraud committed against her own court — we described it as potentially the most important judicial document in this constitutional crisis. We were right, but not in the way we anticipated. It was not just evidence of the fraud. It was the trigger for the fraud inquiry.
The judge who wrote the order noting that no settlement had been filed, that DOJ had violated its transparency obligations, and that the public interest had not been protected — that judge is now investigating whether her court was the victim of a fraud. The document she wrote in real time as the fraud was committed against her has become the foundation of her inquiry into that fraud.
Williams wrote that a "party's decision to file a frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of forcing a settlement may qualify" as the kind of impropriety that allows the court to investigate and determine "whether an attorney has abused the judicial process." That is the full weight of Article III judicial authority being brought to bear on a scheme that was designed specifically to avoid it.
The fund is halted. The fraud inquiry is open. Thirty-five former judges from both parties are on record calling it collusive. The June 12 deadline is approaching. The IRS's suppressed defense memo will eventually be produced. And the addendum signed at 7:50 a.m. — the document that purports to permanently immunize Trump's financial empire from federal examination — sits at the end of a chain of legal authority that is now being dismantled from the bottom up by two federal courts simultaneously.
This is the fifth installment in The Constitutional Record's analysis of Trump v. IRS and the Anti-Weaponization Fund. Our original analysis identified: fraud on the court; collusive litigation; judgment fund misuse; Appropriations Clause violation; the Bondi memo as self-indicting evidence; the addendum's jurisdictional void; the recusal violation; and the IRS mandatory audit policy conflict. Every major finding has now been confirmed in open court proceedings within ten days of publication.
The legal hangman's noose we documented was built by the people wearing it. Two federal courts are now holding the rope.
June 12. Trump must respond. The court is waiting.
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