Trump’s deal with the Depart­ment of Justice raises a level of cor­rup­tion . . .

Simple Recital by two known experts on Law and potential corruption. Both are dismissing the excuses put forth by others of having no way to hinder Trump. He actually calls out what is occurring,

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Trump’s deal with the DOJ marks new level of unprecedented corruption

The Fresno Bee (Sunday)

– by Burt Urt Neuborne and Erwin Chemerinsky

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Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s deal with the Depart­ment of Justice raises cor­rup­tion to a level never seen before in this county. It can — and must — be stopped.

Under a Con­sti­tu­tion com­mit­ted to checks and bal­ances, no pres­id­ent should have the author­ity to give almost $1.8 bil­lion of tax­payer money to his cronies and give him­self broad immunity from liab­il­ity for his per­sonal acts. Some have sug­ges­ted that there is no way to chal­lenge this. But that is wrong: either house of Con­gress could bring a law­suit against this and put an end to it.

Blatant Self-Dealing

What has occurred is stun­ning. Trump, in his per­sonal capa­city, brought a suit against the Internal Rev­enue Ser­vice seek­ing $10 bil­lion in dam­ages for the wrong­ful release of his income tax returns by an IRS sub-con­tractor. The suit was frivol­ous: the stat­ute of lim­it­a­tion already had expired on this claim, and it is dubi­ous that the U.S. gov­ern­ment could be held liable for what occurred.

After he filed the law­suit,

Trump said, “I am sup­posed to work out a set­tle­ment with myself.” That, of course, can­not be right; it is blatant self­deal­ing. Flor­ida fed­eral Judge Kath­leen Wil­li­ams, who was hear­ing the case, recog­nized that this was a col­lus­ive law­suit without the adversar­i­ness required in fed­eral court and appoin­ted inde­pend­ent law­yers to brief the issue.

But before Wil­li­ams could rule, Trump and Interim Attor­ney Gen­eral Todd Blanche — Trump’s former per­sonal law­yer — cir­cum­ven­ted the court by dis­miss­ing the case and enter­ing an astound­ing set­tle­ment. Once the case was dis­missed, the court lacked jur­is­dic­tion and could do noth­ing. The pur­por­ted “set­tle­ment” calls for alloc­at­ing $1.776 bil­lion in Depart­ment of Justice funds to pay com­pens­a­tion to those who allegedly suffered unjust per­se­cu­tion under the Obama or Biden Justice Depart­ments.

Pay­ments will be con­trolled by five “com­mis­sion­ers” appoin­ted by Trump and sub­ject to his ongo­ing super­vi­sion and con­trol. This will almost cer­tainly mean large pay­ments to those pro­sec­uted and con­victed by jur­ies for viol­at­ing the law for their role in the Janu­ary 6 insur­rec­tion. There is noth­ing to stop Trump’s com­mis­sion from giv­ing money to any­one it wants, includ­ing his cronies, friends and fam­ily mem­bers.

Addi­tion­ally, the pur­por­ted “set­tle­ment” per­man­ently exempts Trump, his fam­ily and his busi­ness empire from IRS audits and reg­u­lat­ory action for his past sins, includ­ing the $100 mil­lion pen­alty he was reportedly facing in one of the ongo­ing IRS audits.

Immune from Challenge?

Trump and Blanche obvi­ously think that their raid on tax­pay­ers is immune from chal­lenge. Con­gress could, of course, enact a law block­ing the cor­rupt deal and pre­vent­ing the expendit­ure of funds, but that would mean assem­bling major­it­ies in the House and Sen­ate, over­com­ing a prob­able Sen­ate fili­buster and over­rid­ing Trump’s almost cer­tain veto. That would require a two-thirds vote of both houses, which seems incon­ceiv­able given the fealty of many Repub­lic­ans to Trump.

That leaves the fed­eral courts. Under exist­ing Supreme Court pre­ced­ent, it’s hard to see who would have “stand­ing” to bring a judi­cial chal­lenge. The Supreme Court requires a chal­lenger to demon­strate a “con­crete and par­tic­u­lar­ized” “injury in fact.” In short, neither a tax­payer nor a cit­izen has stand­ing to chal­lenge Trump’s heist merely because it’s blatantly illegal.

Time is of the Essence

But there is a way to chal­lenge this in court — and to do it with deli­cious irony.

In U.S. House of Rep­res­ent­at­ives v. Bur­well (2016), a major­ity of the House of Rep­res­ent­at­ives voted to chal­lenge aspects of the Afford­able Care Act. The Dis­trict Court held that the House of Rep­res­ent­at­ives (and prob­ably the Sen­ate) can pass a res­ol­u­tion by simple major­ity vote — which is not sub­ject to veto — author­iz­ing a judi­cial chal­lenge by the body to Exec­ut­ive action in viol­a­tion of the Appro­pri­ations Clause, which provides: “No money shall be drawn from the Treas­ury but in con­sequence of Appro­pri­ations made by Law.”

In other words, the pas­sage of a House or Sen­ate res­ol­u­tion by major­ity vote would be enough to trig­ger judi­cial review of Trump’s effort to use a phony col­lus­ive “set­tle­ment” as an end run around Con­gress’ power of the purse. In the Sen­ate, for example, the Demo­crats are likely to be joined by Repub­lic­ans facing a re-elec­tion fight, like Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, and by Repub­lic­ans who Trump has tar­geted, like Sen. Bill Cas­sidy, R-LA, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC, Mitch McCon­nell, R-KY, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX.

Once the chal­lenge gets to fed­eral court, Trump seems sure to lose quickly. The pay­ment of almost $1.8 bil­lion is com­ing from the “judg­ment fund,” which Con­gress appro­pri­ated to settle fed­eral cases against the United States. But there is no “set­tle­ment” because there was never a fed­eral case to “settle.”

If the cur­rent Con­gress fails to act, the 2027 Con­gress can still chal­lenge Trump’s effort. But time is of the essence: Once the money is dis­bursed, there is likely no way to get it back.

There is, however, a par­tic­u­lar reason to do it before the 2026 midterms: Under the House and Sen­ate rules, a res­ol­u­tion affect­ing the interests of the House or Sen­ate is a priv­ileged motion that can­not be delayed or tabled. That means a quick roll call that puts each Repub­lican can­did­ate in the pos­i­tion of hav­ing to take a pub­lic pos­i­tion on the phony slush fund. Either the motion passes eas­ily, or Repub­lic­ans must run with that vote around their necks.

Checks and Balances

Fed­eral cases require “adversity.” If one per­son con­trols both sides, the Supreme Court bars it as “col­lus­ive.” Since Trump con­trolled both sides of his case, the so-called set­tle­ment con­sisted of Trump nego­ti­at­ing with his image in a mir­ror. Without a real set­tle­ment, no DOJ funds can be dis­bursed through Trump’s slush fund and the IRS can get back to enfor­cing the tax law against every­one — even Trump and his friends and fam­ily.

The stakes here are much greater than $1.8 bil­lion, though that is a stag­ger­ing sum of money. This is about whether there really are checks and bal­ances in our sys­tem of gov­ern­ment, or whether we have cre­ated a pres­id­ency that really can do almost any­thing.

Burt Neuborne, one of the nation’s fore­most civil liber­ties law­yers, teach­ers and schol­ars, is the found­ing legal dir­ector of the Bren­nan Cen­ter for Justice at NYU School of Law. Erwin Chemer­insky is dean and pro­fessor of law at the UC Berke­ley School of Law.

s://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-fresno-bee-sunday/20260531/281891599942106