Ex-judges mount bid to upend ‘unprecedentedly fraudulent’ Trump ‘anti-weaponization’ fund | CNN Politics

Nearly three dozen former federal judges appointed by presidents from both parties have joined a growing legal effort to upend the Trump administration’s newly created $1.776 billion fund for people who say they were wrongly targeted by the government in the past. The retired jurists are asking a judge in Miami to reverse her decision last week dismissing an extraordinary lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump, one of his adult sons and the Trump Organization against the Internal Revenue Service that resulted in a settlement through which the controversial fund was created. The 35 judges say the lawsuit, which had raised questions about whether it was legally sound given the fact that Trump was both a plaintiff and, as president, the head of the Executive Branch, in which the IRS defendants exist, “is itself a fraud on the court.” Donald Trump is working to protect himself from being prosecuted once he leaves office The settlement in the case, the former judges say, “was not, and never will be, legally justified.” They pointed to the fact that the laws invoked by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to establish the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” require “the existenc