If you guessed Judge Mizelle, bingo!
It's a fascinating read.
And she may very well be right.
Over the last 20 years, the U.S. has routinely recovered upward of a billion dollars a year from False Claims Act lawsuits initiated by private whistleblowers who accuse defendants of defrauding the federal government. In 2023 alone, the U.S. took in more than $2.3 billion, opens new tab from hundreds of lawsuits initiated by private whistleblowers.
A federal judge in Tampa, Florida, ruled, opens new tab on Monday that these whistleblowers wield unconstitutional power. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Mizelle concluded that the whistleblower, or qui tam, provisions of the False Claims Act violate the Appointments Clause of Article II of the U.S. Constitution because whistleblowers exercise executive-branch power without accountability to the president.
Mizelle, a former clerk of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who was 33 years old when she was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020, said False Claims Act whistleblowers are effectively acting as officers of the United States when they initiate and prosecute civil fraud lawsuits on behalf of the government.
