A federal judge will review the Trump administration's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" after a group of former federal judges questioned its legitimacy.
The fund was established following Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Instead of going to trial, Trump administration lawyers and the president's personal legal team settled by agreeing to stand up the taxpayer-supported fund.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Florida on Friday ordered Trump's lawyers to respond to the motion filed by 35 former federal judges who argued that Trump is in a sense both the plaintiff and the defendant in the case, having filed it as president and also the leader of the executive branch overseeing the IRS. Thus, the judges wrote, the lawsuit "is itself a fraud on the court."
The former judges, appointed by both Democrat and Republican presidents, wrote that the lawsuit was used as a justification for the "looting" of American taxpayers. They described the case as a type of "collusion" between the president's lawyers and the federal government and asked the judge to re-open the case to determine the settlement only after the court was "deceived."
Williams, appointed by former President Barack Obama, had initially granted a dismissal of Trump's lawsuit following the settlement, but, in light of the former judges' motion, she said the court is "empowered to investigate serious misconduct."
It follows another judge in Virginia temporarily freezing the fund, which Trump officials have described as an effort to compensate Trump allies, Jan. 6 rioters and others the president says have been unjustly targeted.
That judge, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia, ordered on Friday that Trump officials stop setting up the pool of money to "ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed."
Brinkema, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, set a June 12 hearing for arguments over whether the order should be extended.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to an NPR request for comment on Saturday. Justice Department officials said on social media, "We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes."
Legal expert: Fund 'doesn't address real legal injuries'
Taken together, the orders are an early legal setback for the fund, which has caused divisions within the Capitol Hill, with critics describing it as a slush fund for Trump supporters who claim they were the victims of political persecution.
Brinkema's order pausing it was the result of a lawsuit brought by former Justice Department lawyer Andrew Floyd and other plaintiffs, who argued that the nearly $2 billion was never approved by Congress and "rewards and incentivizes unlawful behavior and facilitates an astounding abuse of taxpayer funds."
Legal experts have expressed particular alarm over the fund's lack of oversight, in addition to the bucket of money having no connection to the claims Trump alleged in his lawsuit against the IRS.
Adam Zimmerman, a law professor at the University of Southern California, told NPR that past examples of mass compensation funds directed by the president, whether related to the Holocaust or the BP oil spill, resolved sprawling class-action lawsuits, which is not the case here.
"All those cases involved identifiable injuries, to discrete groups of people, for violations of real laws, under neutrally applicable rules, often brokered in the shadow of a class action litigation or mass litigation," Zimmerman said on Saturday.
This fund, however, "doesn't address real legal injuries."
"It offers money to an indeterminate group of people, who never threatened or commenced any kind of legal action," he said, describing it as "unlike anything we've seen in the history of the republic."
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