Is it me...

 ... or does it seem like every case involves Trump in some way.  

By David Oscar Markus 

The Trump/IRS case, which through a settlement established the "weaponization fund" or "slush fund" depending on who you ask, as well as immunity from audit, has been subject to *a lot* of criticism.  So much criticism that 35 former federal judges urged Judge Williams to reopen the case to examine the terms of the settlement.  (One of those judges is former SDFLA judge Ursula Ungaro).

Judge Williams agreed to do so. The must-read order is here.  

The NY Times covers the story:

Judge Williams said that she wanted to investigate the circumstances surrounding Mr. Trump’s efforts to settle the lawsuit in a way that benefited him and his allies. If she succeeds in moving forward with her inquiry, it could ultimately result in questions being asked of the Justice Department leaders who signed the agreements to settle the suit — chief among them, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, and Stanley Woodward Jr., the No. 3 official in the department.

In her order, Judge Williams asserted that she was “empowered to investigate serious misconduct” in any case before her, and ordered Mr. Trump’s lawyers to tell her by June 12 whether the lawsuit should be formally reopened because “the court was the victim of a fraud.”

She also wanted Mr. Trump’s lawyers to respond to the question of whether he had colluded with his own government to settle the case “to avoid judicial scrutiny.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Judge Williams pointed to reporting by The New York Times that described how the I.R.S. had prepared a 25-page memorandum outlining defenses against the suit that the Justice Department did not take up in court.

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The $1.8 billion fund has faced separate legal headwinds. A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia temporarily blocked the Trump administration from taking any further steps to set it up or disburse money from it. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including many Republicans, have also been critical of the fund, which upended G.O.P. plans to pass a party-line bill funding immigration enforcement efforts last week.

Mr. Trump, along with two of his sons and the Trump family business, first sued the I.R.S. in January, claiming they were owed at least $10 billion because a former contractor at the agency had leaked their tax returns (and hundreds of others) during the president’s first term in the White House. The Trumps claimed that the I.R.S. should have done more to prevent the contractor, Charles Littlejohn, from disclosing tax information to The New York Times and ProPublica.

Mr. Trump’s suit, as I.R.S. officials laid out in their memo and other lawyers have noted, had clear legal flaws. Potential defenses against it include that it was filed after the statute of limitations, and that it incorrectly faulted the I.R.S. for the actions of Mr. Littlejohn, previously a contractor employed by Booz Allen Hamilton. But the Justice Department never made an attempt to contest Mr. Trump’s suit. No government lawyer entered an appearance in the case.

That has fueled criticism that the deal the Justice Department struck with Mr. Trump was not a genuine attempt to avoid a loss on the merits to the president in court, but instead a scheme to provide him and his political allies with public benefits.