Lawfare and Weaponization

Ruling at whim

By Abraham Johannes

Where do I start?

What is it that I want to say?

I often wrestle with these questions.

For the last two weeks, I have found myself at a loss, floundering in a murky morass that, frankly, frightens me because of what it portends. But I remain motivated to speak of the events of May 18 and 19 with the hope that it will bring clarity to me and motivate you to think more deeply about the multitude of issues related to the events immediately following the dismissal of Trump v IRS.

Before proceeding, here is a summary of the original crime based on the defendant’s plea of guilt:

• During the first Trump administration, Charles Littlejohn was an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor working for the IRS.

• In Nov 2018, Littlejohn stole tax return information for President Donald Trump and “related entities”.

• In Sept 2019, Littlejohn provided that information to the New York Times.

• In spring 2020, Littlejohn stole additional information about Trump and provided that to the New York Times.

• In Aug 2020, Littlejohn stole “IRS data associated with thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals”.

• In Sept 2020, the New York Times published information about Trump’s returns. (A story well worth rereading.)

• In Nov 2020, Littlejohn provided the broader tax information to ProPublica.

• In the ensuing year, ProPublica published multiple articles based on the leaked information about many individuals.

• In Sept 2023, Littlejohn was charged by the Biden administration for disclosing tax return information about Trump.

• In Oct 2023, Littlejohn pled guilty and was sentenced to the statutory maximum of five years in prison, where he remains.

And here is a summary of the civil suit, itself:

• On Jan 29, 2026, Donald Trump (filing as a private citizen while serving as President), his sons, and 419 Trump-related businesses (collectively referred to as the Trump Organization) sued the IRS, an agency under his administration, for failure to “take mandatory precautions” to prevent Littlejohn’s actions.

  • Rupa Bhattacharyya, a former Justice Department lawyer who evaluated these kinds of allegations, told NPR that, even for outcomes like death related to the 9/11 attacks or malpractice at the VA hospitals, “payouts almost never amounted to more than $10 million”. Here, the plaintiffs sought 1,000 times those maximums from an agency run by Trump, himself, for an action, the release of his “very big” and “beautiful” tax returns, that Trump had assured us for years that he wanted to happen. Unsurprisingly, this is the first known instance of a President suing the government he leads.

• On April 24, US District Court Judge Kathleen Williams ordered both sides to submit arguments by May 20 on whether the case met Constitutional standards to be considered a genuine legal dispute.

• On May 18, 2026, the plaintiffs filed for, and were granted, a dismissal of the case with prejudice (meaning that they could never again pursue similar actions).

That’s it.

Judge Williams pointedly observed that, “there was no settlement of record.” A settlement would have been reviewable by the judge to assure that its terms addressed the issues raised in the suit (and no more!) and given each of the adversarial parties the opportunity to have the court ensure that those terms were carried out. There was none of that. The case was simply dropped by the Trumps.

As of that moment, the IRS was totally and forever off the hook.

Sanity, right?

Sadly, no. Instead, it was the start of insanity.

Within hours of the case’s dismissal, the administration released a purported Settlement Agreement that had not been filed with the court and began a disinformation campaign that there had been a settlement after all. Legal experts quickly pointed out that, having not been filed with the court prior to the dismissal, the document was a contract between consenting parties as opposed to a settlement between adversarial parties.

Frank Bisignano, the CEO of the IRS (a newly created position to which he had been appointed in October), and Stanley Woodward, the Associate Attorney General for the DoJ (a Trump appointee who started in that role in November), had signed a contract with their mutual boss to redress:

the sustained use of the levers of government power by Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents in order to target individuals, groups, and entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons (“Lawfare’ and “Weaponization”).

Note that the reported wrongs here occurred under the Biden Administration, which had nothing to do with the supposed failure of the Trump Administration that is at the heart of the lawsuit.

Specifically, the Attorney General was to create “The Anti-Weaponization Fund”:

• Funded to the “projected valuation of future claimants’ claims” … which was quickly revealed to be (coincidentally!) $1.776 billion.

• Managed by five appointees of the AG’s choosing (one with Congressional “consultation”) any of whom the President could remove without cause.

• Run by rules of their own making that need not be made public.

The terms “Lawfare” and “Weaponization” are used throughout the document to describe the victimization that they are seeking to redress but they never, as far as I know, released a Definition of Terms in the agreement that would make clear the meaning of those words and, therefore, the scope of the Fund.

I had originally thought that I should take the time to point out all of the concerning aspects of this agreement. But I now think that most of them, at least, are pretty clear to most observers. So, I’ll simply summarize by saying that Trump and two of his appointees decided to create a commission, that Trump fully controls, to dole out nearly $2 billion of our tax money to anti-Democrat people of their choosing under rules that we are not to know.

If I could imagine 2,000 such people, which is very hard to do, each would be getting, on average, a nearly $1 million pay out.

Astonishing and disgusting.

To make matters worse, when pressed by Congress the next day as to whether such payouts might go to people previously convicted of felonies for the January 6 insurrection (before Trump pardoned them), acting Attorney General Todd Blanche would not rule it out! Oh, man.

As if all that wasn’t enough, on the very next day, acting AG Blanche announced, seemingly out of the blue via a half page memo nominally related to the prior day’s settlement, that:

The United States is … FOREVER BARRED … from prosecuting … any and all claims … known or unknown … that … could have been asserted … against any of the Plaintiffs or affiliated individuals … or parties … by reason of … any matters that … could have been raised in the Case … or any matters that could be pending … before [the IRS] or other agencies or departments.

What? Where did this come from? Who did this? Why?

Todd Blanche, formerly a defense attorney for President Trump who Trump had appointed as Assistant Attorney General in 2025 and had become acting Attorney General last month following the dismissal of AG Pam Bondi, issued a proclamation with no apparent Constitutional basis, protecting Trump, his family, his business interests, and an extended network of related entities and people from prosecution for any federal offenses they may have committed in the past. The breadth and brazenness of the announcement is breathtaking. And this only hours after asserting that President Trump did not benefit in any material way from the “settlement”.

Terry Moran wrote on his Substack last week that:

The audacity [of the corruption] is the tell. They are not hiding it. They are not ashamed of it. They want us to see it. Get used to it. And accommodate ourselves to the new order of things.

I have been exceedingly upset since, wondering how we fight such grift, remembering my parents’ lives under Richard Daley’s partisan (Democratic) “machine” in Chicago.

There is nothing in these bizarre events that even remotely approximates the kind of government I want for us.

But hope, for me at least, arose yesterday when I read that Judge Williams had reopened the lawsuit citing possible misconduct and fraud as well as “grievous allegations” that the settlement process may have been “premised on deception” … i.e., lawfare and weaponization.