Lawfare Daily: Trump Sues Self, Settles

Ajouté : 2026-05-23

[00:00:01]It's an immunity deal. Immunity for any against any possible enforcement action that the federal government could bring at any time based upon anything that you or your family or your businesses or their businesses have done up to the date of the year. So, it's the LawFair podcast. I'm Benjamin Whittis, editor and chief of Lawfair with Lawfair senior editor Eric Columbus.

[00:00:34]There also is, as you say, an equal protection component uh about the type of victim that I think is probably uphill battle because the government, as I said, can can is allowed to pick and choose about what types of victims it wants to harms it wants to remedy.

[00:00:53]We're talking presidents who sue themselves today. Donald Trump has done the impossible. He has settled litigation with himself on the basis of the creation of a slush fund to pay off political supporters along with a shocking immunity agreement by which the government never seeks to sue him again.

[00:01:20]Eric and Lawfair senior editor Anna Bower have written a lengthy examination of this whole mess of issues. We go through it all.

[00:01:32]I want to start with the backstory here.

[00:01:37]Donald Trump sues the IRS.

[00:01:42]Why did he sue the IRS? And what, if any, merit did that suit have? The New York Times and ProPublica published stories about Donald Trump's tax returns that clearly came from uh a leak of some sort.

[00:02:01]>> And this was back in the first term, right?

[00:02:03]>> Well, the leak I I don't recall precisely when the stories were published, but the the leak, as it turned out, was from documents stolen by an IRS contractor named Charles Little John in 2019 and 2020. So yes, the documents were pilered during Trump's uh first term and the he he took this guy took documents from a lot of people, a lot of big shots, including Trump. He was prosecuted for it by the Biden administration uh and sentenced to 5 years in federal prison. So completely normal disposition of that case. Trump being Trump uh sued and he was in fact wronged. he was a a a crime victim and so it was not entirely crazy that he would want some sort of remedy. Uh the hedge fund magnate Ken Griffin also sued. As it turned out, he got uh only an apology as a remedy. Uh Trump obviously got a whole lot more. Uh there were a bunch of problems with Trump's case. There was a statute of limitations uh issue. uh the the the statute of limitations begins to run when you learn that your tax information was disclosed without authorization. He claims that didn't happen until uh January 29th, 2024 when he got an IRS letter saying that uh Little John had been charged with disclosing his returns. But that had been known uh long before or at the very least when Lil John plead guilty in 2023.

[00:03:39]uh one of Trump's own attorneys addressed the court at that time. So, it's pretty hard for Trump to claim that he uh was ignorant before then. Uh there were some some other issues that Lil John was a was a contractor. It's not clear to what extent uh DOJ would would have liability.

[00:03:59]So, you know, in a normal course of events, the government would have defended this case. And the Ken Griffin example where Griffin got a deserved apology very much stands out. Trump got a whole lot more.

[00:04:16]>> Right. So, it's fair to say that leaving aside the legal merits of the case for a minute, you're not the IRS is supposed to protect people's tax returns. Leaks of tax returns are bad. Although there's a fairly good argument that if you're president and you promised to release your tax returns and then reneged on the promise, it may be a little bit less bad than uh that said, it's no less illegal.

[00:04:48]and uh he was in this instance a civil liberties victim and there's thus some righteousness to the idea that something inappropriate happened here but he wouldn't win the suit. Is that a fair summary?

[00:05:06]>> It's probably that he he would probably not win the suit. Yeah. And even if he did win the suit, the damages that he would be eligible for would be vastly smaller than what he received.

[00:05:17]>> All right. So Trump finds himself in this quite enviable position of essentially suing himself, which is to say he's suing the federal government that he's now ahead of the unitary executive of that federal government and the IRS uh ultimately reports to him. Before we get to what happened, let's break down what his authorities are. He is both the plaintiff here and he is not quite the defendant, but he does direct the defendant.

[00:05:59]What are his powers? What does he What does he have the authority to do? What doesn't he have the authority to do regarding directing the IRS to settle this case with him? that it would lose on the basis of the 10 billion dollars that he sought as damages.

[00:06:21]Well, uh, if that kind of depends upon how one views presidential authority, you could, if you're a a a fervent believer in a unitary executive, you would say that the president has full authority to direct the IRS, the Department of Treasury, and the Department of Justice as as as their lawyers to do anything in in litigation and even to uh settle a case on generous terms. MS that he has filed against them. There are there is a a criminal statute that provides that it's a crime for certain people including the Treasury Secretary and the president to order the termination the either the investigation or the termination of an investigation of any tax audit into a taxpayer.

[00:07:18]Of course, under the uh Supreme Court's uh Trump decision from 2024, uh Trump would not be able to be prosecuted for such an official act, and perhaps not even the Treasury Secretary could be.

[00:07:34]But there are all sorts of of constitutional reasons and policy reasons why we would think that the president would not have the ability ability to do this, but that is by no means an uncontested view. Yeah, I think as a functional matter, the president does have the ability to do this because he has the authority under the appointments clause to appoint the Treasury Secretary, to fire the Treasury Secretary, to appoint the commissioner of the IRS, to fire the commissioner of the IRS, to appoint the attorney general, to fire the attorney general.

[00:08:10]Right? And the power to do that is functionally the power to direct a settlement assuming you're willing to tolerate the political consequences for behaving that way. Is that do you think it's act it's in functional terms more complicated than that?

[00:08:31]>> Well, then there is the issue of whether a court uh has jurisdiction in such a case. whether there is a case or controversy under article 3. if it's a a collusive suit, and collusive suits do happen from time to time, and they're not always evil, but if you are really pulling the strings on on both sides in order to cash in for yourself, there is some some trouble here that it may have a constitutional dimension beyond just kind of specific trouble for for Trump himself. And that's what the the district judge judge Williams in the southern district of Florida uh was worried about. And she appointed a team of outside lawyers as amicus amiki curi to for herself to assist her in analyzing this jurisdictional question. And it was really an all-star cast. It it included uh Don Verilli, former solicitor general. It included John Gleason, former US District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, who I believe if memory service prosecuted John Gotti uh when he was a prosecutor. And they filed a brief and it was interesting. It was it was kind of nuanced. They they they stopped short of recommending, you know, outright dismissal of the case given the absence of a factual record. But they said basically like there needs to be adversity between the parties for the court to have subject matter jurisdiction for a federal court to be able to hear the case. And if one party controls the other, then that doesn't exist. And so they they suggested that the court obtain more information uh about maybe trying to see whether the the ongoing settlement negotiations were being conducted at arms length. uh whether the DOJ lawyers were insulated in any way and you know it's quite possible the an it's quite likely I should say that the answers to those questions are no there was nothing being done to uh make it seem anything other than a sham and I I think that maybe spurred the the Trump people to yank the case as soon as they could and and and end this thing before the judge could do anything about it. That's a great introduction and you and Anna Bower have written a kind of exhaustive I would say survey examination of many of the issues that arise from this uh settlement. Let's first describe the various components of it because they're not all clearly linked to each other though they are clearly coordinated and linked. So it seems to me there's three basic components of this settlement. One is that that Trump drops the litigation and the second is that instead of suing for $10 billion to himself, uh the Justice Department sets up a 1.776 get it 1776 billion fund for payment of victims. of so-called weaponization by Democratic but not Republican administrations.

[00:12:09]And number three, and this was not announced the same day, it was announced the following day. The Justice Department has committed that the IRS will not conduct any enforcement activity with respect to any pending matters uh visav Trump's tax returns or those of his family or businesses. Is that are there more components of the deal than that?

[00:12:42]>> That's right. The third one is actually incredibly uh it's actually even broader than how you described it in that it covers anything that is any matters currently pending or that could be pending before any part of the federal government.

[00:13:02]>> It's an immunity deal.

[00:13:04]>> It's an immunity deal. immunity for any against any possible enforcement action that the federal government could bring at any time based upon anything that you or your family or your businesses or their businesses have done up to the date of the settlement >> and it covers criminal or civil matters.

[00:13:29]>> Well, that's a good question. It I read it I mean it doesn't specify the language.

[00:13:35]that it uses is just kind of is it tends to be kind of civil lang is tends to be civil language. A and a a a criminal uh immunity is by the terms of the constitution something that is bestowed by uh the president and in via pardons or and except in the confines of resolving a specific criminal matter is not thought to be something that the attorney general can do. Well, except that that's not right because criminal immunity under the immunity statute happens all the time and is uh done by, you know, simply the government agreeing not to prosecute.

[00:14:16]>> Yes, but in a specific matter. I mean, the government doesn't agree. Okay, I'm just not going to prosecute you for anything you've ever done.

[00:14:23]>> But it does say in the context of plea bargains, you know, you're going to char be charged for X and you're going to plead guilty to X and in exchange, we're going to immunize you for any other claim we might have been able to bring. Right. I I think that I don't think that exempts I don't think those are written so broadly that they exempt you from like if you murdered someone uh if it turns out you murdered someone they can't bring that charge against you >> right it has to be uh within the confines of the existing known fact patterns.

[00:15:01]>> Yeah.

[00:15:02]>> So let's take these three in sequence.

[00:15:04]The first is the dropping of the case.

[00:15:07]How clear is it that the case was dropped because of the difficulty they were running into with the adversariality question uh before Judge Williams?

[00:15:22]>> It's not entirely clear. I I I think there was there's some kind of evidence that these they did this in haste. uh like the documents that were signed by by Todd Blanch are like they're they're like written like they're it's like almost like a page torn out of a contract. It's not the type of thing that a attorney general would doesn't have like the bells and whistles of a normal attorney general order. it which is I mean it's kind of a sloppiness is kind of a hallmark of this administration but it does seem that if they you know had the luxury of time they would have made it look a little bit neater and I just want to emphasize the reason why they they wanted to do this as a settlement and therefore do it while there was still a lawsuit is so that the payment for this slush fund could come out of uh what's known as the judgment fund, which is a fund available o almost exclusively for the federal government to pay out judgments or settlements in court cases. It's not a piggy bank that the government can just use for any project. So, uh, if you claim that you're you have to at the very least claim that this is part of a judicial to that this is to resolve a judicial proceeding in order to use that money, >> right? If it's not related to the case, it's much harder to justify building it in, you know, taking the money from the judgment fund. Yeah. What is the judgment fund and why does the administration get to create a slush fund out of it? That doesn't seem like what it was for. There is no judgment here. Help me out. How clear is it that you can just take this fund and say, you know, here we will build a slush fund for paying my side of the political aisle for claims of uh vindictive weaponization by the other side of the aisle. So, the judgment fund is essentially a permanent permanent appropriation uh kind of like a bottomless pit of funds to pay out uh judgments in in civil litigation uh judgments and settlements. People sue the federal government all the time.

[00:17:53]They win or there are settlements. The government owes out money. This is just an appropriated fund to pay litigation losses.

[00:18:04]Yes. Uh and the assumption is that the government will be responsible in in using it. Uh there has been criticism through the years that it's sometimes been abused and sometimes the government is more or less generous in paying out settlements depending upon what it thinks of the the folks on on the other side. And there were people who during the uh during Democratic administrations who say, "Hey, you guys are paying out settlements to uh in in the civil rights sphere in environmental sphere uh that are in excess of what reasonably uh plaintiffs stood to gain and and taking into account the risk of the government uh had the case proceeded.

[00:18:51]So then there's the the judgment fund statute cross references a a a another statute that authorize an older statute that authorizes that provides that the compromised settlement of claims referred to the attorney general for defense of imminent litigation or suits against the United States shall be settled and paid in a manner similar to judgments in such cases. So in other words, you can pay settlements. Now that statute is very broad and very vague. It refers only to compromise settlements of claims. It doesn't say, you know, this has to be a legit settlement. It doesn't say it can't be, you know, ridiculous. It doesn't even say that the money has to go to the plaintiffs themselves. It doesn't expressly exclude third parties.

[00:19:55]So, has it ever been used to uh you know, so and so has a claim against the federal government, they give up that claim in exchange for the government setting up a fund to give money to other people.

[00:20:12]So there's an example of this that the Department of Justice cites and, you know, holds up as the comparison for why this is kosher. And that is a a case called Keeps Eagle, which was a class action brought by Native American farmers who alleged that the federal government was discriminating against them in loan applications, uh, the Department of Agriculture, and the case was settled during the Obama administration for, I believe, around $760 million.

[00:20:56]The idea was that the eligible uh Native American farmers would submit claims uh to the fund and any money left over which the government and the plaintiffs expected would be maybe a a pretty small amount would go to nonprofits working on uh helping Native Americans of some sort. But that doesn't strike me as comparable at all because the fund is set up to compensate the plaintiffs that is the members of the class who brought the suit. Here, the one plaintiff drops the case and in exchange the the judgment fund is being tapped to set up a fund the beneficiaries of whom we don't know who they're going to be, but they're not the plaintiff. And so it seems like the settlement is for somebody entirely other than the people who were parties to the litigation. Yes.

[00:22:03]Yes. Exactly. As it turned out, the the leftover money in the keeps eagle case turned out unexpectedly turned out to be huge. Turned out to be like a majority of the fund. Like the farmers got I think 300 million and these these uh these nonprofits got 380 million. So it was mammoth and it became uh uh very controversial. Uh but the courts concluded that they couldn't do anything about it because the district court had already signed off on the final judgment that approved that provision. Um at the and at the time no one knew how large that leftover pot would be. But yes, you're exactly right here. By by design, the entire pot is going to third parties. uh and and unlike the third party at the very least in in in keeps eagle the third parties had third party had a you know a little bit of connection uh to the plaintiffs and that they were charities working on Native American causes uh in a case involving alleged discrimination against Native Americans here there's there's there's no uh real connection between the third parties and the plaintiff except kind of a a a corrupt one that they are kind of his political ical cronies >> and that they're all victims of the same fictitious weaponization of the Justice Department.

[00:23:28]>> Yeah, exactly. And and it kind of ironic in that the the the Keep Seagull case and was uh something that Republicans hated and and got very mad about and there were hearings on in Congress.

[00:23:43]>> Well, they were they were right to be mad about this aspect of it. Um that in my opinion that you know having having a settlement that operates as a windfall for nonprofit groups that are not, you know, that are not plaintiffs is not I I don't think a responsible use of the federal treasury. I I don't have a problem with their anger at that.

[00:24:13]I do have a problem with their doubling down on the premise to for a much worse abuse that's not accidental >> and well but the irony is that the they weren't just angry at it but they actually did something about it 3 months after taking office uh Jeff Sessions who once upon a time was Trump's first attorney general uh put out a memo basically saying you know no settlements that give out money to third parties ex unless had quote directly remedies the harm that is thought to be addressed and then they doubled down on that and they removed even that exception in 2020 and Merrick Garland uh rolled it back a little bit um said that you have third party payments if there's a strong connection to the underlying violation and then Pam Bondi on literally on her first full day in office issued a memo revoking the Garland memo and which had the effect of of reinstating the stricter policies of the first Trump administration ation. So they're doing something Todd Blanch is doing something that is not only you know ridiculous and outrageous and far beyond the scope of the example that he originally you know that he cites as president but but that is is itself pretty much explicitly banned by his own administration by his predecessor and and it's it's something that the Trump administration that two Trump administrations have fought against when it didn't involve anyone named Trump.

[00:25:45]>> So, all right, let's review the bidding so far. they unambiguously have the right to drop the case and there may not be a case at all because uh there's a adversariality question with respect to the parties and the issue is hastened by the uh possible complications to the case which in any event they would lose because of statute of limitation issues. And even if they didn't lose because of statute of limitation issues, they would not prevail in a uh in a large dollar sense.

[00:26:31]Though the case has some significant merit morally that that a wrong was in fact done. They have the authority to drop the case. The terms of settlement, the creation of this third party fund is wildly outside of anything the Justice Department has done before, even when it has aired by creating third-party accidentally creating significant third-party compensation mechanisms in settlements.

[00:27:10]These this third-party compensation mechanism is numerous times the size of any prior one intentional and wholly unrelated to the nature of the claims in in the suit. But it's not clearly illegal under the terms of the appropriations bill, right?

[00:27:36]It Yeah, it's not clearly illegal. I mean, one one could make, you know, various arguments about about how this these abuses of the judgment fund exceed the statutes that provide that allow for settlements. But it's really all uh new terrain legally.

[00:27:59]>> Who has standing to challenge it?

[00:28:04]>> There's the rub. Uh and it's not clear that anyone does because you need to have in order to have standing you need to have an an injury that is concrete and and and particularized are terms that the Supreme Court has used uh that is is imminent not not speculative and that is basically uh the fault of the the the people you're suing and that would be redressed favorably by a judicial uh decision. And being a taxpayer who's outraged at this uh waste of money uh does not suffice. What about being Leticia James who gets to walk into court and say, "I was indicted by this administration over the objection of grand jurors.

[00:29:03]They've basically announced publicly intention to persecute me uh in public.

[00:29:11]The president has yelled at Pam Bondi in public about the fact that she should be bringing cases against me. Uh they keep going back to grand juries and trying to get me reindicted. They indicted me illegally according to uh eventually the fourth circuit will say as much. And um oh by the way they keep threatening to do it again and again and again. If anybody is a victim of weaponization of the Justice Department, I am a victim of overt weaponization of the just overt proud and declared weaponization to the point that or you know people in the Justice Department are showing up at my house in creepy trench coats. um like literally. Um, and yet I am ineligible to apply for compensation from the weaponization fund because I am a Democrat and I am complaining about weaponization by a Republican administration which in a viewpoint discriminatory fashion has engineered this fund to disfavor people like me who have complaints against them and enrich only their political allies who have complaints against my political party.

[00:30:41]So I a contend that I have a unique injury. These people are are coming after me. They deny me access to the fund that they created which they are deploying in a viewpoint discriminatory fashion in violation of the first amendment. Why do I not have standing?

[00:31:04]>> Well, that's interesting. At first, I would say that she's not excluded not by virt she's not excluded by being virtue of a Democrat. Uh there's there's nothing in the in the description of the fund that says that. And in fact, Todd Blanch uh who coincidentally was testifying before Congress on Tuesday said, "Look, Hunter Biden can apply if he wants." uh which is kind of a clever thing to say because as Todd Blanch knows uh Hunter Biden was prosecuted under a Democratic administration. So he could it's a clever example to use of how you know even if the the fund is limited to uh Democratic administration abuses that could cover uh abuses against just about anyone even the president's son. you could and you know it's I suppose it's possible that they could write it a little bit more broadly to get it around a Leticia James type suit by kind of removing the limitation to Democratic administrations which was a little bit ambiguous in the original >> I mean it but it's there it prosecuted by this administration if your name is Kilara Brago Garcia or Jim Comey or Leticia James or Monica MacGyver it doesn't matter how strong your claim is, you are ineligible. And that strikes me as a non-neutral viewpoint discriminatory first amendment problem. I I I could see someone bringing that case. I mean, the Trump administration would would respond by saying, "Look, it is not it it's a limitation on who the wrongdoer is. Uh Hunter Biden can can can bring his case.

[00:32:50]any number of people of you know leftists, criminals, whoever who were, you know, targeted by uh Department of Justice in a Democratic administration are welcome uh to apply.

[00:33:05]Uh the government can can pick or choose the wrongs that it wants to remedy. For example, the 9/11 fund I if memory serves, I think did not >> uni act of Congress.

[00:33:17]>> Yes. But the the first amendment is is the same. Uh you could you know that that didn't apply to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing if memory serves and or didn't it definitely didn't apply to other terrorist acts that were were unrelated. Uh and so the government was was favoring uh one type of victim over another.

[00:33:40]>> Of course it wasn't favoring one type of victim of its own actions.

[00:33:46]Right. the the the Trump administration sometimes treats the federal government under the prior administration as though there's no continuity between the entities, right? And I I don't know that you can do that as a uh I'm I'm not sure if the principle resides in the First Amendment or if it resides in, you know, some equal protection principle, but it seems to me that Leticia James has a legit complaint, at least as an equitable matter, that, you know, you set up a fund on on weaponization that allows you know, frankly, meritless claims by people, you know, who actually committed crimes while excluding highly merited claims by people who were the subject of actual weaponization.

[00:34:46]I I would be troubled by that if I were a federal judge.

[00:34:52]>> Yeah. I mean, I I think that such a plaintiff might emerge and might try to mount a first amendment argument based on the quite clearly intended design to benefit people of a certain viewpoint which the government can, you know, which Todd Blanch has already been pushing back on. and the government if they are smart and if they're allowed to be smart can try to somewhat deafly uh mitigate in the construction of the claims process but then know there's there also is as you say an equal protection component uh about the type of victim that I think is probably uphill battle because the government as I said can can is allowed to pick and choose about what types of victims it wants to harms it wants to remedy. But, you know, these are these are things that could be raised in litigation. And obviously, the judges or I should hope it's obvious. The judges, you know, think this whole thing stinks are going to think this whole thing stinks to high heaven and may look more favorably than otherwise on attempts to kill it. All right, let's talk about this third category, which has nothing to do with the fund. It's just a kind of cautisil that comes out the next day saying, "Oh, by the way, you're immunized for everything from the dawn of time until now."

[00:36:26]How is that possibly lawful? And again, who has the who has standing to challenge it? or is it simply a matter of the next administration tears it up and says such a thing is not consistent with public policy and no such contract is is enforcable.

[00:36:49]>> Yeah, I I I I think it's it's it's the latter. I don't see how anyone would have standing to challenge a a non enforcement decision. I mean, arguably there could be some type of competitor standing if one organization is in the say there's a some real estate company that is competing with with the Trump organization and the government has gone after them but not after the Trumps. But uh I I think that's be very hard to imagine that uh prevailing and it it's I I do think a future Department of Justice would treat it as presumptively invalid. Uh it's not clear that how Todd Blanch has the authority even to say this uh even to do it as part of a a settlement. It's really weird that Blanch this this second part of the of the deal was this part of the deal was separate from the other part both in in in what it is and also in time. It it wasn't part of the settlement agreement. It was posted and and apparently signed the dated the following day uh somewhat conveniently right after Blanch finished his congressional testimony.

[00:38:08]Blanch is not a party to the case. He's sorry. It says at the beginning of it that that this is being done to effectuate the settlement agreement and the the anti-weaponization fund. Uh which is kind of the the same language used in his order the previous day that kind of set up the fund. But it's kind of head scratcher because this release of liability has nothing to do with the fund and Blance just posted it yesterday and but he's not a party of the case.

[00:38:35]He's not exercising any authority delegated to him by the settlement agreement. And the settlement agreement, it was at least signed by the IRS's top official. So I it's very strange. And the the self-deing arguments are are even stronger here than in than with the fund. and they're they're quite strong there, but they're even stronger here because this is just you know I'm going to give you I the attorney general who who you appointed am going to give you uh you know get out of well if not jail get out of civil liability free fund for forever and ever. Uh so I think this would be torn up by uh a future uh department of justice assuming that they I mean they're not going to go go after Trump in a civil matter just for the sake of doing so I don't think but if for example uh that the New York Times reported that there was an ongoing audit of Trump that could well cost them over hund00 million. Uh they reported this I think in 2024.

[00:39:34]>> The Department of Justice, the the IRS might well reopen that under a new Democratic administration and let and then once the audit's completed, sue Trump for the money and let Trump argue that he was somehow given a immunity by his own attorney general.

[00:39:55]So the the net effect of this is not that it prevents the government from seeking liability in some future administration against Trump or his entities or his members of his family.

[00:40:09]It's really that it provides an argument that would have to be overcome to Trump that the attorney general signed this document that immunized me. Well, I mean, it purports to it purports to uh prevent any, >> right? No, no, he would but he would argue so some future attorney general, say attorney general Eric Columbus comes in and tears out that tears up that document and the IRS brings this uh lawsuit for say $und00 million and Trump argues no, that's precluded by the Blanch document. And the the the real consequence of this is that you the government would have this extra step of arguing in court that the document is not enforcable.

[00:41:02]Yeah. And and that's analogous, for example, to say if Trump decided to pardon himself on his last day in office and there are strong argu arguments as to why a self-pardon is is invalid like like like say that he committed some clearly unofficial act that was a crime that that was a federal crime and he pardon himself on the last day. uh the future department of justice could choose to prosecute him for that and let courts sort out whether or not his self-pardon was valid.

[00:41:36]>> All right, I want to close this with a moment on the ethics questions visa v Todd Blanch.

[00:41:46]You're a member of in good standing of what bar?

[00:41:51]>> You meaning Todd Blanch or No, >> meaning you Eric Columbus. uh the District of Columbia. And if you were to say go back into the Justice Department and be assigned to work on or let's say you were asked to work on or you were at a political level where you could assign yourself work on a matter that involved a recent former client and you engineered Ed or supervised or signed off on a settlement that allowed the creation of a giant slush fund at the political disposal of that worth $1.776 billion to benefit the friends and political allies of your former client. And the next day you signed a statement immunizing from civil liability. Your former client from the dawn of time till now all and and the person's businesses and and uh and family members for any civil liability for anything and maybe criminal liability too. Would you fear that somebody would file a bar complaint with the District of Columbia saying you're not allowed to use your current position to enrich your former client?

[00:43:31]That that is a an actual conflict of interest, not an appearance of a conflict of interest, an actual conflict of interest, and you're not allowed to participate in that matter. Why is Todd Blanch so completely unafraid of that bar complaint?

[00:43:49]>> Uh well to answer that question, I think that the the worst case scenario for Todd Blanch would be that he is disbarred from practicing law and he could have a long happy and uh wealthy life uh without doing it. uh and this is would be many years down the road in in any case and and for that matter even if he's disbar he could still be attorney general without being a member of the bar.

[00:44:14]>> Well, he wouldn't be able to actually sign briefs and that appear in court.

[00:44:19]>> Correct. Correct. though before being attorney before this administration.

[00:44:23]>> I've I've looked into I've looked into this because you know I have occasionally wanted to be attorney general and that whole not being able to represent that I'm an attorney thing would would be a problem. Well, actually before this administration, the attorney general's name did not appear on briefs.

[00:44:41]It's one of the weirder but probably least meaningful novelties, if you will, that the this administration has uh introduced.

[00:44:51]I I believe it's actually quite possible that if you're not a member of a bar, you cannot be paid by the attorney general. There's actually a statute uh regarding that.

[00:45:00]>> It's a grave injustice in my life, I'm afraid. But but but seriously, if you were in Todd Blanch's role, I I mean, you would fear for your law license, right?

[00:45:11]>> So So it's interesting and and I'm I'm trying to remember my the DOJ ethics rules that I used to be subject to uh regulations and I think in some cases criminal statutes. I I I don't think that the setting up of the fund itself is an issue because it does not benefit Trump himself uh in in the in the strict financial sense and I believe it actually says in the settlement agreement that the plaintiffs are not allowed to get any uh money uh from the fund. Now, you might say and and quite possibly with good reason that even so, Blanch was involved in settling a case that was brought by his former client and therefore he should have been recused in from anything arising out of that. Now, technically the settlement he was just effectuating something already done by the settlement agreement. So, you know, maybe it's it's permissible. I don't know. But then you get to the weirder the harder question I think is the the the civil liability immunity because the settlement agreement does not purport to address that and Blanch is kind of claiming it does which is weird. Uh but if it doesn't then he's just kind of you know giving freelancing immunity to his former client. I sat in a court for six weeks with Todd Blanch while he represented this man in a criminal trial. You know that criminal trial is the New York state case is still under appeal in the second circuit. He was council of record in the underlying case. I don't see how you can, you know, as a lawyer for a client with a criminal conviction currently before the uh New York first division appellet court in New York a and they're still trying to get it removed to federal court. How you can take how you can represent that client. You got that? And you are engineering immunity for him from the federal government. I I I just don't see how that's possibly ethical.

[00:47:36]>> I I I think there are some very serious problems there.

[00:47:40]>> Folks, we're going to leave it there.

[00:47:41]Eric Columbus, thank you for joining us.

[00:47:45]You can read Eric's and Anna Bower's uh lengthy examination and and detailed examination of this series of matters on lawfare. Eric, remind me what is the headline of the piece? What's it called?

[00:48:01]>> It is called the president who sued himself.

[00:48:06]>> The president who sued himself about sums it up. Eric, thanks for joining us today.

[00:48:12]>> Thanks, Ben.

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