A union representing Internal Revenue Service employees has joined a lawsuit to block a $1.776 billion slush fund for President Donald Trump’s political allies and to prevent the president and his family from achieving immunity from tax audits.
“At its core, this case is about protecting the integrity of the federal civil service and employees,” said Doreen Greenwald, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union. “NTEU is joining this lawsuit to make it clear: IRS employees should never be forced to choose between following a political directive to keep their job and following the law and their oath to the Constitution.”
Doreen Greenwald
The organization joins former January 6 federal prosecutor Andrew Floyd, Professor Jonathan Caravello, the City of New Haven, Conn., the National Abortion Federation and Common Cause as plaintiffs in Andrew Floyd v. U.S. Department of Justice. Democracy Forward is litigating the case.
The action was filed in May after the IRS agreed to settle the president’s $10 million lawsuit against the agency for leaked tax documents.
The settlement included establishment of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” the president could use to pay January 6 rioters, anti-abortion protesters and others of his supporters investigated, indicted, convicted or sued for civil or criminal misconduct before Trump returned to office. And the deal would permanently shield the president and his family from investigations into their business dealings.
But U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia issued a temporary restraining order May 29 barring the administration from creating or using the fund. She solidified that decision with a June 12 order suspending any development of the fund as the lawsuit continues.
Judge Kathleen Williams
Those decisions were followed by a July 13 ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami calling the Trump v. IRS settlement a sham designed from the beginning to be settled in order to create the slush fund and tax-audit immunity deals.
“And because this fact was so obvious and so insurmountable, the court finds that this matter was brought for an improper purpose — to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact,” Williams wrote. “As was observed in another matter brought in this district, ‘this case is part of Mr. Trump’s pattern of misusing the courts to serve political purposes.’”
Democracy Forward announced that Floyd v. DOJ was amended Aug. 6 to argue the deal Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche negotiated for the president is illegal and unconstitutional.
“Under the Immunity Order, career IRS employees will be forced to terminate ongoing audits of the president and his businesses, giving the president a lucrative and unconstitutional emolument. That would be unprecedented under any circumstance; it is all the more remarkable considering that the president profited an eye-popping $2.2 billion after returning to the White House,” the group says.
The suit further notes that Blanche was nominated for attorney general just three weeks after giving the order to create the slush fund and establish tax-audit immunity.
“This scheme is an unprecedented, unlawful and breathtakingly corrupt attempt by the president and members of his cabinet to manipulate the legal process and laws intended to prevent political interference to achieve benefits that President Trump and his political allies could not have obtained lawfully,” the suit claims.
In the meantime, Blanche and other administration officials have refused to provide sworn statements that they have complied with the court’s ruling on the slush fund and audit immunity.
“The acting Attorney General cannot tell the public the slush fund is dead while preserving every legal mechanism necessary to resurrect it at a moment’s notice,” Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman said. “This amended complaint shows that despite repeated public claims that the slush fund has been rescinded, the administration has refused to dismantle the agreement that created it and refused to foreclose bringing it back.”
Blanche was confirmed by the Senate — by a one-vote margin — as attorney general Saturday morning. Two Republican senators had demanded Blanche to put in writing a pledge that the fund is “not moving forward. Period.”
Blanche did that after days of negotiation, but his statement does not prohibit Trump from seeking to revive the matter in court. Nor does Blanche’s written pledge stop his order that gives Trump and his family broad immunity from any government review.