By David Oscar Markus
Sorry to write over Jordi's post below, but woooooweeeeee, this is a doozy and I wanted to get it out there. I can't do Judge Williams' order justice in a short post, so you'll just have to read it here.
The conclusion:
John Adams warned, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Thus, whatever may be the Parties’ wishes, inclinations, or the dictates of their passion, they cannot alter the state of the facts or evade the rule of law. Contrary to Plaintiffs’ concern, the Court did not have to “sally forth” to look for a wrong to right. See DE 89 at 17 (citing Margolin v. Nat’l Ass’n of Immig. Judges, 608 U.S. __ (2026)). The Court need only look to the uncontroverted facts here:
1. Donald Trump is President.
2. President Trump controls the actions of the Secretary of the Treasury Department Scott Bessent, IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, and all Executive Branch actors.
3. President Trump, through Executive Order § 7, also controls the litigation strategy and interpretation of the laws guiding the Department of Justice. See supra note 28.
4. For the 109 days that this case was pending, no attorney representing the United States filed a notice of appearance or any document indicating the government’s position, interest, or awareness of this matter.
5. Defendants’ actions are consonant with the dictates of Executive Order § 7.
These facts lead to the inexorable conclusion that the “settlement” terms, the individuals who signed the “settlement” as well as the putative beneficiaries of the “settlement,” demonstrate a shared, unitary interest. And the unilateral revision and renunciation of the “Fund” component of the “settlement” demonstrate the fact that all Parties were aligned, and ultimately, undifferentiated. This action was never about a party seeking judicial resolution of a legal issue or a factual dispute. The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court 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. The President may be the functional “dominus litus” of the Executive Branch, but as a party to a civil suit, he, as well as all the parties and lawyers before a court, are bound by the rules. Ensuring that our courts are used only for the express purpose created by the Constitution is the obligation of every judge and an obligation that this Court must discharge in light of the matter before it.
In sum, the facts before this Court demonstrate there was never adverseness between the Parties; there was never a case or controversy; and there was never a question as to who would prevail.
And MSN's coverage is here:
A Florida federal judge in a blistering order on Monday said that President Donald Trump had filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service "for an improper purpose" — to gain the appearance of "judicial legitimacy" for a controversial settlement with the Justice Department that briefly led to the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to compensate purported victims of prosecutorial misconduct.
Judge Kathleen William referred Trump's lawyer in the lawsuit, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida bar for consideration on whether Brito should be disciplined in light of the findings in the new order.
Williams also ordered that a copy of her ruling be mailed to the State Bar of New York, of which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is a member, as well as to the District of Columbia Bar, of which Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward is a member.
A spokesman for Trump's legal team, which includes Brito, in a statement responding to the order, said, "The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to the New York Times, ProPublica and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people."
11 comments:
Sadly, because Murphy's Law saw this case assigned to Judge Williams, we can just cue the chorus of "liberal judge," "Obama appointee," etc. that will allow folks to completely cover their eyes and ears (and hold their noses) to all the facts here, without any need to even confront or reinterpret them.
On that note, who was the poor paralegal who accidentally clicked "Miami division" when filing this complaint? No obvious reason for it to be a Miami case, and picking S.D. Fla. at all was obviously an attempt to get Cannon (again).
Order also sanctions attorney Daniel Epstein. Epstein was recently appointed interim Dean of FIU Law school. https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/article316346665.html
Those who don’t want to hear the truth will ignore it no matter who the dispenses it. That’s how Mike Pence and anyone else who eventually tells the truth becomes the enemy.
Thank you Judge Williams for standing against public corruption and a fraud on the Court. The judiciary is all that we have left given the destruction of DOJ!
If there was no case or controversy, why didn’t she dismiss it at the outset? I agree this was a sham, but why did she sign off on the initial settlement?
@ 12:36 - she didn't sign off on it. That's the whole point. Trump and friends VD'ed the case--emphasizing (too much) in that notice how it is self-executing and divests the court of jurisdiction immediately upon its filing. And they did so before there would be an opportunity for the Court to make that finding. And obviously there was no "defendant" would would have pressed it via a MTD.
A liberal federal Judge! I have been a lawyer for 30+ years and have yet to see a liberal judge. All the ones my cases are assigned to try and follow the law.
I like, and have a lot of respect for, Judge Williams, but I doubt that this order will be upheld on appeal. The law is well-established -- a voluntary notice of dismissal is self-executing and divests the court of jurisdiction. Yes, there are certain "collateral issues" over which courts still retain jurisdiction, and Rule 11, on which Judge Williams relies, is one of them. But it's important actually to look at the facts of those decisions where this limited exception has been recognized. In those decisions, the defendants had actually filed motions for Rule 11 sanctions when the notice of voluntary dismissal was filed (as was the case in Cooter & Gell of SCOTUS) or, at a minimum, announced their intent to file that motion (as was the case in Fox v. Acadia State Bank of the Eleventh Circuit). In those instances, it makes sense that courts would retain jurisdiction to rule on those motions; otherwise, plaintiffs could just moot a perfected Rule 11 motion by filing a notice of voluntary dismissal. But unless I'm mistaken, none of the decisions cited by Judge Williams involved this situation -- permitting a court, after a voluntary notice of dismissal had already been filed, to engage in a sua sponte roving Rule 11 inquiry where no motion for Rule 11 sanctions had been filed.
Before entering an order like this, I'd want to make sure I'd be on strong jurisdictional footing. But, hey, apparently others are willing to look past that.
Agree with you, but do believe the Judge attempted (and perhaps successfully) to insulate against a reversal by including a whole section on the Court's inherent power to prevent abuse of the judicial process and to control litigants who appear before it (whether pre- or post-dismissal).
I also agree--to the extent you are making this point, but agree with it regardless--that this order has its own "effect" notwithstanding its chances of survival on appeal. Even in the simplest terms that we're talking about how much this collusive lawsuit stank from the outset, and how much media coverage it's already gotten.
No one's going to care when a reversal comes in 6 months--the purpose of this order will have already been served.
@1:30 - I agree with this wholeheartedly. And while I'm not blinded by my own personal and political leanings, I'd add that to the extent there are judges who are politically outcome-driven, it tends to be the ones that NO ONE would lob a "liberal" at. I.e. ... the irony.
This order was quite an impressive read and a massive amount of work appears to have gone into it. The court had many amici curiae brief the Court on jurisdictional issues, including “the thirty-five former Federal Judges, whose briefing precipitated this Order” and were thanked in footnote 69. I also read several of the cases cited starting on page 9, including Hyde v. Irish, 962 F.3d 1306, 1309 (11th Cir. 2020), which I think settles the matter of whether the court has jurisdiction to consider sanctions (whether by Rule 11 – either filed motion by a party or sua sponte- or by inherent authority), and notes that litigants and attorneys can’t get away with misconduct simply by VD’ing a lawsuit (which appears to be what happened here). In the Eleventh Circuit disagrees and says that the Court had no jurisdiction post-VD to sua sponte award Rule 11 sanctions I'd be surprised based on the language and public policy in Hyde.
Thanks for posting this article and the order.
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