r/law

The Louisiana senator, who lost his primary over the weekend, voted in support of the war powers resolution for the first time. It advanced 50-47, with a final passage vote yet to come.

While Trump's slush fund scam rightfully has us reeling at his ability to openly steal $1.8 billion of our money, there's a bigger implication here that nobody seems to be seeing.

Trump has now completely usurped the power of the purse. He has a parallel means to fund the government with no limits, oversight, or controls. This was just the proof-of-concept.

If he can sue the government for $10 billion of imaginary wrongs, why not $100 trillion? DOJ then settles for $10 trillion or so, funding any personal or government priority Trump wants. He can do this every year. It's the real-life infinite money glitch.

Existing law appears to permit this, so Congress would have to pass a new law to constrain it. Said law would be vetoed by POTUS, so they'd need 67 senators. GOP gets 34 senators just by getting out of bed in the morning, so this is effectively a permanent rule unless a Democrat becomes POTUS, in which we can expect SCOTUS to invent some new law in accordance with GOP political interests.

If this persists long enough, I predict that it will become the new way of setting budgets, with all those messy Congressional appropriations just withering away. Welcome to the Dual State!

also reported here:
https://www.ft.com/content/567c57b0-6346-43e6-9d14-840a793b4d1d?syn-25a6b1a6=1

>During his summit with Xi, Trump also suggested that the US, China and Russia should join forces to combat the ICC, saying their interests were aligned, according to the people familiar with the talks. 

While the United States, Israel, and India do not endorse or recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its citizens, much of the rest of the free world does.

On Monday morning, the Justice Department announced a settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and his own federal government that would create a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” — by all appearances, a slush fund — to make payments to Trump allies who claim the federal government mistreated them. This proposed “settlement” stems from a lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS, seeking $10 billion in damages over the 2017 leak about his personal income taxes.

The lawsuit and proposed settlement represent Trump’s most brazen attempt to date to co-opt the legal system for his own ends. They are also emblematic of an underappreciated dimension of Trump’s efforts to consolidate power during his second term. Trump has sought to exploit legal processes by using the courts to extort legal settlements and expand his own powers. Unlike previous settlements between Trump and private corporations, in this one, Trump’s allies will be enriched while taxpayers will foot the bill, which could be in the billions.

To be sure, Trump’s many lawsuits against media entities, ostensibly brought in his personal capacity to redress personal injuries, are part of a pattern. Most of the lawsuits have asserted claims that are unlikely to be availing under extant law. Nevertheless, some of the lawsuits have resulted in eye-popping settlements. The costs of these settlements are not simply monetary — they ratify the president’s unsupported account of the law, chill dissent and give the president substantial control over accountability institutions that might check his administration’s worst excesses. Indeed, some of the settlements have the stench of quid pro quo corruption, in which media entities fork over money in exchange for presidential access and the administration’s favor...

US Dept of Education sued over new “professional degree” rules set to go into effect this summer.

The Department of Education has been sued by 25 states Attorneys General and DC for their new rules set to go into effect this summer that excludes, amongst other degrees, mental health professionals and social workers. The lawsuit claims the Department acted arbitrarily and capriciously by reading the language in the “big beautiful bill” incorrectly. The list of “professionals” now only includes:

Pharmacy (Pharm.D.), Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.), Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.), Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.), Law (L.L.B. or J.D.), Medicine (M.D.), Optometry (O.D.), Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.), and Theology (M.Div., or M.H.L.).

Article: https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5885968-states-sue-education-department-graduate-student-loans/?fbclid=IwdGRleAR5\\\_YlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEerCONMVzYEWkalzLRzLfVRY\\\_ca09CVpYEbbk2uBUGJRDF\\\_MIAQkGnsWsU7rg\\\_aem\\\_XMMt4J8Dqvxu6tWZTHW0uw

Lawsuit: https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/0001%20Complaint%20%5BFilestamped%5D\\\_Redacted.pdf

As a taxpayer we are all harmed by the unconstitutional decision by the DOJ to create a untracked fund that will be administered by group of political operatives. The power of the purse is controlled by Congress.

Since taxpayers have legal standing is it possible to sue the DOJ or the Executive for this blatant action and stop it?

Is he stupid or does he think we are?