"Fraud on the Court": Even as DOJ Drops $1.8B Settlement Fund, Judge Reopens Case over Collusion

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN : In a rare reversal for the Trump administration, the Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers Tuesday the Department of Justice would not be moving forward with the $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund, even after the temporary pause mandated by the court. Blanche had announced the fund just weeks ago as part of a settlement deal with President Trump and his family over their private lawsuit with the IRS over the leaking of Trump’s tax returns years ago. The fund has been widely criticized as a slush fund to provide payouts to January 6th insurrectionists and other Trump allies, even drawing rebuke from some Senate Republicans and dividing the caucus.

This is Todd Blanche, formerly President Trump’s personal attorney, responding to questioning from New York Congressmember Grace Meng on Tuesday.

ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL TODD BLANCHE : We are not moving forward with the fund, period. … The reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them. The reasons for the fund, I think, were — remain as important as they were before, but we are not moving forward with the fund.

REP . GRACE MENG : Not moving forward ever?

ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL TODD BLANCHE : Correct.

REP . GRACE MENG : You and Associate Attorney General Woodward signed earlier documents regarding the settlement and this fund. Would both of you now sign and release documents reversing the DOJ’s position on the fund?

ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL TODD BLANCHE : I’m not — we’re not moving forward with the fund. I’m not sure what that means to sign documents reversing. There’s nothing to reverse. We’re not moving forward with the fund.

AMY GOODMAN : But the story isn’t over. On Friday, District Court Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami ordered the case reopened, after 35 former federal judges filed a motion saying the settlement may have been a fraud on the court and a product of collusion. The president’s attorneys have until June 12th to respond.

We’re joined now by one of those 35 judges, retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner. She served on the bench for 17 years in Massachusetts before retiring in 2011. She joins us from Boston. And we’re joined by former New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, who is serving as co-counsel for the former judges in his four years as state attorney general under Governor Phil Murphy from 2022 to January of this year. He later joined at least 43 lawsuits against the Trump administration and brought several high-profile investigations into Republicans, Democrats and state police. He’s joining us today from Minneapolis.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Judge Gertner, let’s go to you first. Explain why you’re talking about this as possibly a fraud on the court, and even if Trump drops it, as the attorney general has said, you’re calling for this case to be reopened, investigated.

NANCY GERTNER : What happened in this case was, essentially, Trump was suing himself — there was no question that Trump was on both sides of the ” v. ” — brought this case, essentially, as a fig leaf to justify paying the money. There is a fund that is called the settlement fund, where individuals who sue the IRS , the case is settled, or if the case goes to judgment, they can collect against that fund. And so, the Trump administration believed that the way in which to sort of perfect this fund, to get this money, was to file a lawsuit, and that would sort of dignify what they were doing. It would legitimize what they were doing.

The problem was that the lawsuit, we claim, the evidence suggests, was a sham, that the lawsuit was one part of the administration suing the other. There was no effort to defend it in any meaningful way. In fact, as the judge found, there was a document from the IRS which made it clear what their defenses were in like cases, defenses that they were just not raising in this case because they were just rolling over.

After the case was filed, the judge had a sense that there might be a problem with it, might be collusion, “collusion” meaning they’re — essentially, the same person was on both sides of the ” v. ” She closed the case when they sought to dismiss. And then we moved — I’m represented by Matt Platkin, fabulous lawyer. We moved to reopen the case on the grounds that there’s information that the judge didn’t know about, namely that this was collusive. The judge has opened the briefing on this issue. And in addition, she is inquiring about sanctions for lawyers that made misrepresentations in the case. So, I and 34 others believe that this is an administration of — administration of justice issue. You can’t manipulate the courts to broom clean an illegitimate settlement.

AMY GOODMAN : Now, that settlement, Trump’s saying, or his former personal attorney, the now attorney…