Judge DROPS HAMMER on Trump’s $1.8 BILLION Fund

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Hi everyone, Harry here to talk about a stay entered against the administration telling them don't do anything about this $1.776 billion fund at least for the next couple weeks and that's going to stand.

[00:00:16]We'll see if they try to disobey it in some way. Can't put it past them. Uh but that should uh if they're law-abiding stand until the the judge here, Elani Brinkma of the Eastern District of Virginia, actually gets briefs and issues a ruling on the motion for a temporary injunction of the whole thing.

[00:00:44]Okay. The lawsuit, there are a few out there, as you know. There's one by 93 members of Congress. As I've said, I've written about this extensively uh in the uh recent Substacks. It's going to be a really uphill battle on standing. Ditto. Another case brought by two of the customs officers who were uh really injured in the melee by these insurrectionists who stand now to be completely unjustly enriched on top of the complete unjust pardon. and whitewashing of the record. Two separate things that they already have received.

[00:01:25]Those officers are saying, you know, we were harmed before and they'll come after us if you fund them in this way.

[00:01:33]Also going to be hard on standing. I've talked about that at length. And now the suit in front of Brinkma. It's a little bit of an amalgam of the others. There are five, I believe, separate plaintiffs. Two of them are people, including an assistant US attorney in the Eastern District who say they were victimized, injured by the weaponization of the Department of Justice, by the Trump Department of Justice. They ought to get recompense, too. And the creation of this fund only for people weaponized supposedly by the Biden Justice Department uh makes them a disfavored class. It's an implicit equal protection claim. Then they are joined by um organizations common cause, national abortion fund who say we are reviled by these guys. You're about to uh make wealthy. They will come after us.

[00:02:34]They've said so. In other words, a fairly similar kind of claim as the officers are making in the other suit.

[00:02:41]give them this money and they're going to use it against us and that will be an injury. Um, we don't have to exume this completely. The stuff I've talked about in the other suits, I think, is sufficient to make clear that this is an uphill battle on standing. the administration's going to come in both barrels blazing saying the people who were harmed by their supposed uh Trump weaponization which of course never happened uh aside here it's a fact I put in my um my substacks there's no such thing as weaponization by the Biden Justice Department and there's very much such thing uh demonstrable of weaponization by the Trump Justice Department but anyway the law is pretty wrong that it's not an injury that you could have gotten something that the other guy got. Why didn't why not me too? There's a a loose kind of equal protection concept in there, but it really I think would not typically count as a cognizable injury under law. And also for these organizations, it's fairly speculative uh why they would be injured and it moves through third parties. It's another uphill standing battle.

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[00:05:04]That's the sort of um sober assessment on the legal side. But uh I just talked to Jamie Raskin. We're posting that on YouTube and Substack. and really kind of um delved into what's going on. It's kind of all hands-on deck strategy uh in the courts in the Congress just generally in the political ferment and this has to be counted as part of it. So Brinkamas says I'm putting everything on hold so I can get briefing. I want it fast within the next week. give me briefs uh about why or why not there should be a an injunction entered. Then in a week from after that on the 12th of June I'll have a hearing and then I'll issue an opinion presumably if it's written that'll be a little bit more time. So even if she says no standing it'll still have been several weeks where during which the linebackers were frozen. Unless that is, and this is possible, the administration quickly comes in and says, "Terrible, terrible."

[00:06:08]Uh, dissolve what Brinkma has done and tries to take it to the fourth circuit.

[00:06:13]That's the circuit court above Brinkma.

[00:06:17]They have been uh hardly reflexive uh on behalf of the Trump administration.

[00:06:23]uh even their conservative members have been noticeably um dubious about some of the capers that the Trump administration has tried to pull. But anyway, you may well see the administration saying we can't even wait 3 weeks. We want an emergency stay of Brinkamuz order. Now, of course, they'll have to make a strong claim or in theory they should have to.

[00:06:49]That's been honored in the breach by the Supreme Court. But why do you need this emergency emergency emergency uh vacating of what Brinkma has done?

[00:06:59]Really, I think the law properly would be, you know, let her go through these these few weeks and if she then holds their standing, you can then appeal it to the fourth circuit. But in the meantime, this is a blow against the fund and the legal status is that it is off the books for now. So, we'll see how the administration handles it. But in my view, and I've talked to among other people Jamie Raskin about this, written about this, even if the administration, and this is part of the whole idea, is able to prevent any person from challenging a patently illegal sort of six ways illegal uh arrangement. There's a kind of uh growing den of politics and law and congressional potential action. Rascin himself has introduced a resolution for example saying uh can't spend a penny on this fund. Uh Congress could, it's not inconceivable that Congress adopt something like that. Of course, Trump would veto it. Um when you look at the individual channels of pushing back against this monstrous really worst thing that's happened I think clearly impeachable uh and worst thing uh in Trump 2.0 with the exception only of the initial pardon of the January 6 offenders uh who who now stand to be enriched. If they got all this fund they would all be millionaires anyway. uh even if each channel the legal one the leg the which there's going to be standing issues the legislative one Trump can veto and the raw political one you put them all together and they may uh well be a kind of a increasing drum beat uh of which this is one heavy uh hit against this whole thing and a kind of political tsunami against it that itself would just more or less force Trump's uh hand. That's the notion and the hope. He could try to go to double down on his lawlessness and say, "I don't even need the settlement if say Judge Williams, we've talked about this uh in the in the Substack, uh decides to open the phony baloney settlement and call it collusive. There are ways for him to put his head down and and bullheadedly go forward, but there's also indications of a really growing um wave of political opposition and legal challenge and the like that it's hard to see exactly how, but may coalesce to bring down this um what what Rascin appropriately called in a uh recent op-ed a whole new even for Trump a whole new burst of uh scandal and outrageous selfdeing. So that's the state of play for now. Brinkma has said there uh you can't do anything that ought to last for a few weeks although we may see the administration try to seek emergency relief and it's just um I think appropriate to analyze it not only on the strict uh fine points of the legal merits of standing but as part of a whole kind of growing snowball of opposition to this total stinkpot of a selfdeal building and public screwing arrangement with a slush fund and a forgiveness of Trump's audits and uh the like. So I think what the the bottom line here is this is part and parcel of a growing den that is uh in some way that it's we can't exactly anticipate um hopefully going to bring this sucker down.

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