The International Academy of Trial Lawyers is committed to upholding the Rule of Law and preserving the integrity of the legal profession. This mission compels the Academy to issue this statement. The Academy urges the involved Judge(s) to reject the recent sham and illegal “settlement” with President Trump.
The announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice that it will follow a District Court order to pause implementation of the settlement is welcome news. But it is not enough. The payment of enormous taxpayer dollars for President Trump to control and donate to friends, allies, and convicted criminals violates the U.S. Constitution and undermines the Rule of Law. The “settlement” also immunizes the President, his family, and his businesses from the failure to pay taxes and bars the government from enforcing U.S. tax laws against them through the date of the settlement.
The Department of Justice must cancel every aspect of this $1.776 billion sham “settlement,” including the “addendum” signed by the Attorney General giving the President immunity from income tax enforcement.
The Federal Judge assigned to the case rightly instructed the parties to show they met the requirements for a real case in dispute under the law – a “case or controversy” required under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. Rather than answer that question, the President first “dismissed” his lawsuit and then claimed to “settle” it with people who work for him in exchange for payment of almost two billion dollars and immunity from the IRS ever again challenging whether President Trump, his family, and his businesses paid the taxes they owe. No other U.S. Citizen could get this kind of settlement.
This improper self-dealing violates the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since then, another Federal Judge prohibited the government from making any payments to or from the “fund” the sham settlement tries to create. Under the Article I of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress can create a budget with taxpayer funds. The President and the Executive Branch can only administer funds under the budget set by Congress.
Congress appropriated funds to settle claims “for the defense of imminent litigation or suits against the United States…, upon obligations of the United States.” This settlement does not meet that standard.
Congress did not authorize the use of the Judgment Fund for this purpose. It must act now to protect its Constitutional authority and prevent the President from taking control of the taxpayer budget. Under the Constitution, neither the President nor the Attorney General can allocate billions in funds, much less to themselves. Budgetary authority belongs only to Congress under Article I of the Constitution.
Article III of the Constitution controls the Courts. It requires that parties in federal Court must be “actually adverse.” The President was, as he has said, “suing himself,” claiming that an agency he oversees, the IRS, violated his privacy during his first term as President, when he also controlled it. He was then, as now, head of the Executive Branch, including the IRS, when the acts he “sued” for occurred. No other citizen could move this “lawsuit” or “settlement” forward. The claim could not legally have been brought when filed by the President. It was filed after the two-year deadline for a lawsuit to be brought. The President could only move it forward because he controlled both sides of the suit. No one was trying to defend the case, as they do with every other citizen. This lack of competing parties is prohibited by the Constitution’s “case or controversy” requirement.
One Judge ordered a briefing on whether there was fraud on the Court or collusion (where supposedly opposing parties are working together). Another Judge ordered a briefing on the same subject, in a different case. The Courts are right to probe these issues. This sham settlement undermines the Rule of Law, which requires that Court cases occur in a process that is public, involves a legitimate legal dispute with opposing parties, and free of conflicts of interest (“a case and controversy”).
Every Branch of government should reject this collusive, conflict-laden, sham settlement.
The Department of Justice’s announcement that it will not fund the settlement should not stop a searching review by the Courts or prevent Congressional oversight. The Attorney General said he will still honor the unlawful “immunity” from tax enforcement he granted to the President at whose pleasure he serves. Without transparency and scrutiny by the Courts and Congress, the President and the Attorney General could also try to fund the same, sham settlement again.
The people of the United States should also make their voices heard. In the deeply moving preamble to the U.S. Constitution, the Founders said this:
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The American people should not remain silent in the face of an unconstitutional and sham settlement that does not “promote the general welfare” and fails to secure the equal “blessings of liberty” to all citizens.
The First Amendment to the Constitution protects the rights of citizens to petition the government for redress of their grievances and guarantees them equal protection under the law. Every American who loves the Constitution should call their Congressional Representatives or Senators to tell them to act to stop this sham settlement and demand that your elected representatives protect the U.S. Constitution and the Rule of Law.