A federal judge has opened an extraordinary inquiry into whether the Trump Administrations settlement with the IRS, which produced a $1.77 billion anti-weaponization fund, was the product of fraud on the court.
The move comes after President Trump agreed earlier this month to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his confidential tax returns in exchange for a settlement designed to compensate Americans targeted by what he has called the Biden administrations weaponized bureaucracy. As reported by Gateway Pundit, Trump abandoned his blockbuster claim in return for a $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded pool intended to pay individuals who were unfairly targeted by the Biden Regime, a deal that has now drawn fire from a cadre of retired jurists.
In January, President Trump, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization sued the IRS, alleging the unlawful disclosure of their tax information and seeking $10 billion in damages for the unprecedented breach. After the settlement was reached and the case closed, a group of 35 former federal judges urged the court to revisit the matter, arguing that the circumstances surrounding the agreement raised profound concerns about integrity in the judicial process.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, a Miami-based Obama appointee, responded by formally launching an inquiry into the settlement and the conduct of the parties. A federal judge is demanding answers to allegations that President Donald Trump defrauded her court by filing a lawsuit against the IRS as a pretext to reach a settlement that resulted in a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund to make payouts to his political allies, Politico reported, noting that Williams cited the former judges warning that Trumps effort may have amounted to serious misconduct and an abuse of the court system.
The controversy is rooted in a scandal that began long before the settlement, when a former IRS contractor was charged in September 2023 with stealing and leaking tax data belonging to President Trump and thousands of other Americans. According to court documents and a Justice Department press release, Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official, referred to as Public Official A now known as Donald Trump, and then disclosed this information to a news organization identified as News Organization 1 now known as The New York Times.
Prosecutors said Littlejohn also pilfered IRS data on thousands of wealthy people, which was then funneled to two media outlets, the New York Times and ProPublica, in what conservatives view as a politically motivated operation masquerading as journalism. Despite the scale and gravity of the breach, Littlejohn received only a five-year prison sentence, even though Political leaders said he should have been sentenced to 60 years, underscoring for many on the right the double standard that punishes leakers who cross the establishment while protecting those who target President Trump and his supporters.
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