U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Monday sanctioned lawyers and barred parts of President Donald Trump's settlement with the IRS, saying the lawsuit was brought for an "improper purpose."
Williams referred attorney Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar for potential disciplinary action and blocked attorney Daniel Epstein from practicing in the Southern District of Florida for one year, and she ordered her decision mailed to the State Bar of New York and the District of Columbia Bar.
Williams wrote that the plaintiffs "acted in bad faith" and concluded that "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."
The agreement at issue had included a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund that was unveiled in May to end a $10 billion civil lawsuit brought by Trump and his two oldest sons over the leak of his tax returns.
Another provision of the settlement that permanently bars the IRS from pursuing tax claims against Trump, his oldest sons, his company or affiliated companies remains intact, Williams' order said.
Williams sharply criticized the Justice Department, saying it "abdicat[ed] its responsibility to zealously defend the interests of the United States," and noted that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. had signed documents relating to the settlement.
In response to the ruling, a spokesman for Trump's legal team said, "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 initial lawsuit alleged the leak came from a former IRS contractor, Charles Littlejohn, and the leaked material formed the basis of a New York Times investigation into Trump's tax payments.
A group of 35 former judges had asked Williams in May to reopen the case, calling the agreement "the product of collusion" and "a fraud on the court," and the outside groups and former judges who challenged the deal have two weeks to ask that Trump and his lawyers cover their attorney's fees.
The administration announced it was not moving forward with the anti-weaponization program after intense criticism, and other courts had temporarily blocked implementation after two plaintiffs in Virginia sued, leading the administration to abandon the fund in June under bipartisan pressure.
Williams rejected the argument that dropping the suit stripped the court of jurisdiction, saying courts retain authority over collateral matters such as sanctions; she barred Trump and the government from calling the agreement a "settlement," imposed nonmonetary sanctions, and found monetary sanctions warranted though she did not name an amount.
In closing, Williams invoked the line that "Facts are stubborn things," writing that parties cannot "alter the state of the facts or evade the rule of law."