Lawrence O’Donnell Says Judge’s Probe Into $1.8 Billion Trump ‘Slush Fund’ Is ‘Direct Threat to Donald Trump Himself’

MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell gleefully told viewers that a probe into President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund ordered by federal Judge Kathleen Williams is a “direct threat” to Trump, legally speaking.

The Trump Justice Department announced the creation of a so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” last month as part of the settlement in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leaking of his tax returns by a former official.

But the pushback against what has been widely seen as an unaccountable “slush fund” has been so fierce that he’s reportedly on the verge of abandoning it — maybe.

The fund is being blocked by U.S. District ​Court Judge Leonie Brinkema and is under scrutiny from Judge Williams, who has ordered briefs on “the question of whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the ‘victim of a fraud.’”

On Monday night’s edition of MS NOW’s The Last Word, O’Donnell zeroed in on the judge’s order to suggest that Trump could be in legal jeopardy that is not covered by the Supreme Court’s immunity decision:

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: But the possibly more difficult legal problem for Donald Trump now is that Judge Kathleen Williams in the Southern District of Florida is using her unique power as a federal judge to investigate not just Donald Trump’s lawyers at the Justice Department and Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, but also Donald Trump himself.

Donald Trump filed his case against the Internal Revenue Service in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, in the hope of getting one of those Trump-friendly Florida federal judges down there, which can happen because judges are randomly assigned. Instead, Donald Trump got Judge Kathleen Williams, who was appointed to the federal court by President Barack Obama.

And last week, in response to a motion by a group of former federal judges to reopen the Trump case against the IRS to investigate the legitimacy of the so-called settlement of that lawsuit, the judge decided to do exactly that, saying that something extremely threatening to Donald Trump’s acting attorney general and to Donald Trump was possible here. The judge wrote, “A court is empowered to investigate serious misconduct as a collateral issue within the purview of Rule 11 and determine whether an attorney has abused the judicial process.”

It is very clear that attorneys abused the judicial process in this case, and so all of those attorneys are in serious trouble tonight. The judge said, “Under Rule 11, a court may impose sanctions on a lawyer for advocating a frivolous position, pursuing an unfounded claim or filing a lawsuit for some improper purpose.” The Trump lawyers know that a White House source simply telling Axios that it’s dead for now does not get them out of trouble with this federal judge.

But the next line of the judge’s order on Friday is a direct threat to Donald Trump himself. Donald Trump is not a lawyer in the case who can be disciplined as a lawyer, but Donald Trump is a party to the case. He is the party in the case. He is the party who actually brought the case against the Internal Revenue Service, giving the case the title Donald J. Trump versus Internal Revenue Service.

And about Donald J. Trump, the judge wrote this, “A party’s decision to file a frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of forcing a settlement may qualify as such an improper abuse. If a party files a lawsuit for an improper purpose, the court may impose an appropriate sanction on the responsible party.”

So here is a federal judge who now has the power, depending on the outcome of her investigation, to impose a penalty on Donald Trump for doing all of this. The judge gave Donald Trump until June 12th next week to answer this question in writing, quote, “of whether the case should be reopened because the court was the victim of a fraud.”

Watch above via MS NOW’s The Last Word.

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