US District Judge Kathleen Williams voided the Trump IRS audit immunity hearing settlement on Monday, erasing the agreement that had shielded Donald Trump from tax audits. The ruling also bars Trump and his sons from citing the deal in future legal proceedings.
The settlement had created a since-abandoned $1.8bn Anti-Weaponization Fund, intended to compensate people who claimed they were unfairly targeted by the government. It was unveiled in May after Trump dropped his $10bn lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
Williams' Monday ruling
Williams said the suit was filed for an improper purpose and wrote that it “was never about a party seeking judicial resolution of a legal issue or a factual dispute.” She added that the settlement was meant 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.”
In the same ruling, she said it was “risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the Parties,” and referred Alejandro Brito to the Florida bar for potential disciplinary action. Daniel Epstein will be unable to join cases in the Southern District of Florida for at least a year.
Trump and the IRS
The dispute traces back to leaked tax information tied to Charles Littlejohn. Trump said nothing had been done to stop the leak of his private tax information, which was used in a New York Times investigation before the 2020 presidential election. That investigation said he paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and no taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.
Williams wrote that Trump did not pursue his claims until he once again occupied the White House. She also wrote that he had appointed his former lawyer and the former lawyer of people who were expected to benefit from the Anti-Weaponization Fund to prominent positions in the Department of Justice, where they negotiated with his current lawyers, including his former White House Counsel.
Future IRS audits
The ruling could allow the IRS to move forward with future audits into Trump’s tax claims. It also prevents Trump and his sons from relying on the settlement’s terms in later proceedings, closing off the agreement as a legal shield in any new dispute over his tax filings.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said the IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically motivated employee to leak private and confidential information to the media, and said President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable. Brandon DeBot of the Tax Law Center called the agreement a “sweetheart deal” and said it gave Trump “unauthorized and unprecedented” exemptions from tax audit rules.
