Trump and his lawyers did nothing to disturb court's 'binding legal consequences' for 'their bad faith' lawsuit against IRS, judge says

Donald Trump and his lawyers failed to convince a Florida judge to halt the sanctions order she issued in response to the president's "non-adversarial, collusive" lawsuit against the IRS, leaving their fates in the hands of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, sitting in the Southern District of Florida, began her 18-page order by saying "each argument" for staying the "imposition of three sanctions" was "unpersuasive."

Williams, who earlier said it was "risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the Parties," indicated that nothing has changed since, other than the DOJ and Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter filing a notice of appeal to the 11th Circuit last week.

"The Court disagrees with the Movants' assertion that a stay pending appeal of the Sanctions Order is warranted. The Motion to Stay does not demonstrate the requisite likelihood of success or irreparable harm to grant such extraordinary relief. Nor does the Motion to Stay undermine the Court's conclusion and detailed findings set forth in the Sanctions Order as to the Parties' lack of adverseness and their bad faith," Williams' order said on Monday.

One problem the judge identified is that her sanctions order is "non-final," because it also "contemplates further fee proceedings," and she has "not made a final determination regarding the amount of fees, if any, to be awarded" to amici curiae who contested Trump's case in a way the Trump DOJ never did.

Those "friends of the court" include 35 former federal judges and ex-IRS and Treasury officials who sounded the alarm months ago as Trump moved to voluntarily dismiss his case, only for the president to immediately announce the $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund and "settlement" which additionally immunized his family and himself from backward-looking tax probes.

The ex-judges urged Williams to reopen the case and investigate whether there really was "an actual underlying case or controversy" before her and whether "this 'case' that the parties purport to have 'settled' is itself a fraud on the Court."

That's why the Barack Obama-appointed jurist found in July that the president's attorneys filed a "collusive" lawsuit to "manipulate the judicial process" and improperly force the IRS into a "settlement" that "had no viable basis in law or fact" — all as the DOJ sat "silent" on the sidelines, with no attorney formally entering an appearance.

As part of the ruling, the judge ordered "non-monetary" sanctions against Trump's attorneys, Alejandro Brito and Daniel Epstein, for their involvement.

In Brito's case, it meant a referral to the Florida Bar; for Epstein, a former White House lawyer, it meant he would not be granted pro hac vice permission to appear in the Southern District of Florida for "one year or until further order of this Court."

On the monetary sanctions front, the judge said the amici curiae had a right to request reimbursement from Trump for their attorneys' efforts. The amici did so, the former judges seeking $4,610.83 and ex-IRS officials asking for $39,000 in attorneys' fees. The judge has yet to grant the reimbursement motions.

Further, Williams "prohibited" the parties from "referring to the purported 'settlement agreement.'"

That led Trump's lawyers to tell the 11th Circuit that the order's "sweeping, unconstitutional, and unlawful gag order" on the president himself must be halted, especially since Williams refused to issue an expedited ruling on their motion.

But on Monday, Williams said she was "entitled to sanction improper references to the 'settlement agreement'" and declined to issue a stay because it would do "more harm to the public than good" — by "undermin[ing] the legal effect of a court order and diminish[ing] the public's confidence in the judiciary's ability to impose binding legal consequences."

"The Court's conclusion was underscored by the litigation strategy, or lack thereof, martialed by Defendants in this case. The Sanctions Order identifies the various ways that this lawsuit was handled in stark juxtaposition to cases involving the same defendants, the same defense counsel, and for the most part, the same issues," the judge wrote. "Such conduct, taken together with Lead Plaintiff's uncircumscribed control over Secretary Bessent, IRS CEO Bisignano, and the DOJ, and the subsequent actions of then-AAG Blanche, regarding the creation and rescission of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, demonstrate that the Parties lacked adverseness from the inception of this case."