President Donald Trump gestures next to first lady Melania Trump during UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, June 15, 2026, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/Pool Photo via AP).
Nearly three dozen former federal judges backed the sanctions imposed on Donald Trump's attorneys and said there should be no stay pending appeal, given the "strong evidence of collusion and lack of adversity" and "bad faith" underlying the president's lawsuit against the government he heads.
As Law&Crime has reported, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on July 13 found Trump's lawyers filed a "non-adversarial, collusive" lawsuit to "manipulate the judicial process" and improperly force the IRS into a $1.776 billion "settlement" with "no viable basis in law or fact."
Consequently, the Obama-appointed judge imposed both monetary and non-monetary sanctions against Trump's attorneys, going so far as to refer Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar. The monetary sanctions were "appropriate […] reimbursement" for the 35 former federal judges and ex-IRS officials who separately intervened as amici curiae or friends of the court, the ruling said.
Unsurprisingly, the former judges sought $4,610.83 and ex-IRS officials asked for $39,000 in attorneys' fees. Just as unsurprisingly, Trump's legal team has, on an expedited basis, sought a stay of Williams' order pending an appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming the judge's bar on "referring to the settlement in official proceedings" and "wrongful invitation to seek fees" exceeded her authority.
The ex-judges have countered that the muzzling sanction was "surgical in its precision" because it "impose[d] no restriction whatsoever on the parties' speech outside official proceedings," and that Trump is "not likely to prevail on appeal" on that point or the others.
"[T]he Court's sanction restricts only speech that would falsely present, as if they were a legitimate settlement of federal litigation, these collusive arrangements based on a collusive suit," court documents said on Tuesday, calling the sanctions "amply supported."
Six lawyers whom Williams earlier appointed as amici to argue whether the court had jurisdiction in the matter separately argued Tuesday that Trump's attorneys "have not established that they are entitled to a speedier resolution."
Just declaring that "time is of the essence" doesn't make it so, when Trump's "own conduct undermines" the claimed need for an "immediate ruling," the filing said.
"The Court issued its sanctions ruling on July 13, 2026. Plaintiffs did not file their stay application until July 31, 2026," the court-appointed amici noted. "They cannot reasonably contend that giving amici the default two weeks to respond to their motion would inflict irreparable harm when they waited nearly three weeks to file themselves."
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