Stop the
SLUSH FUND

President Trump signals intent to nominate Blanche as Attorney General at a White House Rose Garden dinner.

“Don’t play possum with this court.”

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema converts the earlier TRO into a full preliminary injunction, blocking the Anti-Weaponization Fund indefinitely. The order prohibits the government from transferring money to the fund, processing any claim, making any payment, appointing managers, or reconstituting the fund under any other name.

One exit is offered: a sworn declaration under penalty of perjury stating the fund will not proceed – by June 19.

If no declaration is filed, a full briefing schedule kicks in with a DOJ responsive pleading due July 17.

President Trump's lawyers file their court-ordered response to the 35 retired federal judges who called the settlement "a fraud on the court." The filing goes on offense, calling the motion "transparently political" and accusing the judges of trying to "gin up press attention." Their core arguments:

• The court lost jurisdiction the instant Trump's Rule 41 voluntary dismissal was filed — there was nothing left to defraud, because there was no judicial act to corrupt.
• The 35 judges are non-parties with no standing under Rule 60. Their interest in "the administration of justice" is a "paradigmatic abstract grievance" that federal courts have consistently rejected.
• The settlement is independently valid: DOJ has statutory authority under federal law (28 U.S.C. §§ 2414, 2677; 31 U.S.C. § 1304) to settle claims with or without a pending lawsuit.

The plaintiffs further assert, directly to the judge:

The 35 retired federal judges who filed the May 27 amicus motion have until June 19 to reply to the plaintiffs' response, if they choose.

Judge Brinkema's June 12 injunction order gave the government until today: file sworn declarations from Acting AG Blanche, Associate AG Woodward, and Treasury Secretary Bessent — under penalty of perjury — that the fund will not proceed in any form. If no declarations were filed, a full briefing schedule would kick in with DOJ's responsive pleading due July 17.

DOJ filed a notice — not the declarations. Signed by Associate AG Woodward, the brief argues that compelling sworn testimony from three senior executive officials "implicates serious separation of powers concerns" and is "unnecessary." DOJ contends that Blanche's congressional testimony and its own repeated written representations already establish mootness — citing Judge Leon's June 10 ruling in CREW v. DOJ as precedent for crediting those representations without compelled oaths.

Because no sworn declarations were filed, the court is likely to issue a scheduling order.

The 35 retired federal judges file their reply to Trump's June 12 opposition brief — the final word before Judge Williams decides whether to reopen the case and investigate fraud-on-the-court allegations. Today was their court-set deadline to respond if they chose to.

The judges argue the evidence has grown stronger since their May 27 motion. Their sharpest new point: DOJ's June 2 reversal — unilaterally abandoning the $1.776B fund with no written agreement, no revised terms, no signature — is itself proof that no genuine adversity ever existed. A real settlement between real adversaries cannot be dissolved by one side's press statement.

The judges also reject Trump's standing and mandamus arguments as "red herrings," reiterating that a court's inherent power to investigate fraud on its own processes operates independently of any party's motion. This is the last brief before the court rules on whether to reopen Trump v. IRS.