Bipartisan group of ex-federal judges seeks to challenge Trump’s $1.7bn ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

Dozens of former federal judges have joined the push to thwart Donald Trump’s creation of a $1.776bn “ anti-weaponization fund ” that would funnel taxpayer dollars to the president’s political allies. The bipartisan group of 35 judges filed a lawsuit in the southern district of Florida on Wednesday seeking to reopen Trump’s legal case against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leaking of his tax information by a whistleblower who was later sentenced to five years in prison. Trump, who had been seeking $10bn in damages, settled that case earlier this month in exchange for a financial agreement with the IRS allowing him to set up what critics have called a “slush fund” for his allies. This could include those convicted of violence during the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot he incited when trying in vain to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Trump pardoned those convicted after returning to the White House last year. The former judges said the settlement fund was “a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the Court”, and urged the Miami-based federal judge Kathleen Williams, appointed by Barack Obama, to reconsider her 18 May decision to approve it. …