Trump appears to have engineered a deal that forgives his outstanding IRS tax liabilities, along with those of his sons and the Trump Organization, and shields his family and business from further federal tax scrutiny. But here’s the catch — that deal is now under fire from the inside. Thirty-five former federal judges have asked the court to reopen the case, arguing the entire settlement was “a product of collusion” and “a fraud on the Court.” A sitting federal judge agreed, and has ordered Trump’s own lawyers to explain themselves by June 12. In other words, even the forgiveness Trump tried to lock in might have been obtained by lying to a judge.
Why?
A plain and simple why. Is this only about tax liability? Is that really all this is?
Because here’s something I know, and you probably know it too. The government has never been shy about going after the money of an organization it considers a criminal enterprise. Hasn’t the government been known to seize the assets of crime syndicates? To freeze them?
It has. For decades. Civil and criminal asset forfeiture lets the government seize and freeze assets tied to organized crime — cash, property, vehicles, bank accounts — often before anyone is even convicted of anything. RICO has been the government’s favorite hammer against the mafia, the cartels, the fraud rings, the money launderers. Take away the money, and you take away the organization’s ability to function. That’s not a controversial law enforcement theory. That’s been the playbook since 1970.
So if the government has the tools to freeze and seize the assets of any organization it suspects of operating as a criminal enterprise — why did this administration choose forgiveness instead? And why, now that a federal judge is asking whether that forgiveness was obtained through fraud on the court, is anyone still treating it as settled?
Why does one organization get audits dropped, liabilities erased, and family members shielded by a quietly filed addendum — while another organization, doing business with the same playbook of shell companies and questionable cash flows, gets its bank accounts frozen and its property seized before a jury ever hears the case?
I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m not a prosecutor, a judge, or a grand jury. I’m just a man asking the obvious question out loud, the same question I suspect a lot of you have been asking quietly to yourselves.
If the tools exist, and they clearly do — why aren’t they being used here? And if it turns out the forgiveness itself was secured by deceiving a federal court — what happens then?
