She also referred his attorney for possible professional discipline.


The fund was the result of an unprecedented deal that Trump made with himself after he dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for the unlawful leak of his tax returns in 2019. The honey pot payments were pitched as reparations, paid for by U.S. taxpayers through the Department of Justice, to virtually any right-winger that felt targeted by the previous presidential administration.

“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law,” wrote U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in a 56-page order Monday.

Williams ruled that any entities affiliated with the slush fund settlement—including the president, the Treasury Department, and the IRS—were “prohibited” from using the details of the arrangement in any official capacity. She also referred Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida bar for possible professional discipline.

She noted that while Trump had the right to pursue legal action over the unauthorized publication of his tax returns, he chose not to do so while he was still a private citizen. Instead, Trump did not bring the charges until he had returned to the White House and subsequently appointed his former lawyer, Todd Blanche, atop the Justice Department.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    1 day ago

    His attorney is being sanctioned, and may lose his law license. Maybe attorneys will stop fighting his bullshit cases if it means they will not just lose the nonsense case, but also their ability to practice law.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      20 hours ago

      I’ve been hearing this for decades about Trump’s lawyers. But the thing is, there will always be another scammer who thinks they will be the special one that gets away from the shit pile on top.

    • khepri@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      21 hours ago

      absolutely, judges have every right to sanction and refer to the Bar attorneys that don’t live up to the code of professional ethics. I understand why most judges most of the time are loath to do this, but lawyers are supposed to have actual hard ethical obligations as officers of the Court to NOT act in the way these ones did.