Legal analyst Harry Litman , among other critics, has excoriated the deal calling it ” a kind of BS agreement between people on the same side, both of which are controlled by Trump.” Litman went on to call it “scummy” and “unconstitutional.” Dan Abrams, who comes from a family of lawyers and has a law degree but is primarily a progressive journalist, pundit and media entrepreneur, went on a full-scale rant on his podcast.

“This is a complete and total outrage. All right, let’s start with how we got here, right? Trump sues — it wasn’t just the $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. He also had another lawsuit for $230 million about ‘weaponization.’ Both completely frivolous, all right? Let’s start there, because it’s important to know that the case is frivolous….What’s most galling to me about this is, this is creating what I’m gonna call a constitutional crisis in spirit….The judge was clearly going to dismiss this lawsuit. And so, rather than to allow that to happen, they ‘settled it’ right?…. there’s gotta be someone back there who’s laughing as they’re creating this [weaponization] language…”

Dan is a legal commentator who is sloppy with his terms. The lawsuit was audacious, but it wasn’t “frivolous.” Democrats claim the lawsuit and settlement are unconstitutional, but then they call every lawsuit against their allies unconstitutional. (CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” campaign ad for Kamala Harris was election interference). The Democrats (and the Axis, of course) claim…

1. Article III of the U.S. Constitution requires “genuine cases or controversies” between opposing parties. Some legal scholars and a federal judge expressed concern that the lawsuit was an unconstitutional “collusive” action because Trump, as President, effectively controlled both the plaintiff (himself) and the defendants (the IRS and Treasury Department).

2. Democrats in Congress filed a court brief arguing that the President could not realistically sue agencies he oversees, and that the lawsuit was an unlawful attempt to bypass judicial oversight to facilitate a massive payout.

3. Other critics argued that attempting to settle the case for a $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate January 6 defendants and other political allies would violate congressional spending powers because as Congress never approved such a fund and Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits spending public funds to pay for insurrection.

Well, that last part is partisan B.S., since the riot wasn’t an insurrection. Moreover, the fear that Trump will use the new fund to compensate J-7 rioters is pure speculation. Nonetheless, this deal stinks, and should be challenged ethically if not legally. The whole Justice Department and the Treasury Department too had irresolvable conflicts, and should not have been allowed to make a settlement with their own boss.

***

UPDATE: Conservative legal pundit Ed Whelan writes,

“The settlement agreement between Donald Trump and the IRS states (in section IV.A):

‘The corpus of The Anti-Weaponization Fund’s funding [i.e., the $1.776 billion dollars set forth in Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s order] does not represent the value of any current claim by Plaintiffs [Donald Trump et al.], but rather is based on the projected valuation of future claimants’ claims, and accordingly the corpus of The Anti-Weaponization Fund’s funding is not taxable income as to plaintiffs, who receive no economic benefit from this Settlement Agreement.’

….The settlement’s declaration that the settlement amount “does not represent the value of any current claim” by Trump and the other Trump plaintiffs (Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization) sure seems like an admission that the settlement is collusive and in bad faith.”