SACRAMENTO, Calif., July 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — GLOW – Government Lawyers Oversight Watchdog, the first-ever non-profit dedicated to documenting the conduct of executive branch attorneys, issued the following statement regarding yesterday’s sanctions Order by U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the Southern District of Florida in Trump v. Internal Revenue Service, No. 1:26-cv-20609-KMW (S.D. Fla. July 13, 2026).
In January 2026, President Trump — joined by Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and The Trump Organization, LLC — sued the IRS and the Treasury Department, two agencies he controls as head of the Executive Branch, demanding at least $10 billion over the unlawful disclosure of his tax information by IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn. The Department of Justice, which the Court observed has “zealously defended” materially identical claims brought by other plaintiffs, never entered an appearance for the government, never raised the obvious statute-of-limitations and damages defenses its own lawyers had raised elsewhere, and never filed a single pleading. When the Court demanded briefing on whether it even had jurisdiction over a case in which the plaintiff controls the defendants, the parties instead dismissed the case and announced a purported “settlement”: a formal apology from the United States and a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to be drawn from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund. The next day, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a unilateral “Release Order” purporting to immunize President Trump, his family, his companies, and his affiliates from “any and all claims” and from future IRS audits.
Yesterday the Court held that the parties were never adverse — the Lead Plaintiff and the Government are one — and found that the lawsuit was pursued “in bad faith for the improper purpose of dishonestly advancing a political narrative” and “to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact.” “It is risible,” the Court wrote, “to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the Parties.”
“This Order confirms what GLOW was founded to expose: government lawyers who abandon their duty to the public in order to serve the personal interests of the powerful,” said Omri Marian, GLOW’s President. “The Department of Justice does not represent the President’s personal fortune; it represents the American people. When the nation’s most senior lawyers sign away $1.776 billion in taxpayer money in a deal benefitting their own former clients — and then tell Congress ‘there is no judge’ available to review it — that is not lawyering. It is a betrayal of the profession’s most basic obligations, and we are grateful the Court refused to look away.”
Lawyers Reprimanded by the Court
Todd Blanche — Acting Attorney General of the United States (N.Y. Bar No. 4192456). Mr. Blanche leads the Department of Justice, the office charged with defending the United States in court, and was nominated by President Trump on June 8, 2026, to hold the position permanently; before joining the administration, he served as President Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, the federal election-obstruction case, and the New York “hush money” prosecution. According to the Court, rather than recuse from a matter involving his former client — as DOJ has said he does in other ongoing matters — or direct any defense of the United States, Mr. Blanche signed the purported “settlement agreement” committing $1.776 billion in taxpayer funds; issued, over his signature alone, a “Release Order” purporting to confer blanket immunity on the Trump family and bar future IRS audits of them, a provision the Court found “directly contravenes” 26 U.S.C. § 7217’s prohibition on executive branch interference with audits; and told Congress that “there is no judge” and “no mechanism” to review the deal — testimony the Court described as “at best, misleading and, at worst, disingenuous.” His subsequent unilateral repudiation of the Fund demonstrated, in the Court’s words, “that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case.” Having found the government’s abdication of its duties “untenable” and part of the bad-faith conduct triggering its inherent sanctioning authority, the Court directed the Clerk of Court to mail a copy of the sanctions Order to the State Bar of New York, of which Mr. Blanche is a member, placing his conduct squarely before his licensing authority.
Stanley Woodward, Jr. — Associate Attorney General of the United States (D.C. Bar No. 997320). Mr. Woodward is the third-ranking official at the Department of Justice. Before entering government service, he represented multiple defendants criminally charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as Walt Nauta, President Trump’s personal aide and co-defendant in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. The Court found that Mr. Woodward signed the purported “settlement agreement” on behalf of the United States even though the “gravamen” of that agreement is to fund claims arising from, among other things, January 6 and the Mar-a-Lago prosecution — matters the administration itself has held out as quintessential “weaponization” and “lawfare” claims. Rather than recusing or vigorously defending the lawsuit as DOJ policy requires, the Court found, Woodward was one of the lawyers who “agreed to a ‘settlement’ involving a staggering amount of money potentially benefitting former clients,” conduct the Court analyzed under the conflict-of-interest rules governing lawyers who move between private clients and government office. The Court directed the Clerk of Court to mail a copy of the Order to the District of Columbia Bar, of which Mr. Woodward is a member and where, as the Court noted, disciplinary proceedings against him are already ongoing.
Daniel Epstein — Counsel to Plaintiffs; former White House Senior Associate Counsel (D.C. Bar No. 1009132). Mr. Epstein served in the first Trump administration as White House Senior Associate Counsel and Special Assistant to President Trump from 2017 until 2020, and has since represented President Trump in a series of private lawsuits. In this case, the Court found, Mr. Epstein was listed on the Complaint as plaintiffs’ co-counsel with a pro hac vice application described as “forthcoming” that was never filed — leading the Court to conclude that he “was aware that he would never need to appear and litigate the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims.” He nonetheless conferred with unidentified “counsel” for the government on the only substantive motion filed in the case, and then signed the purported “settlement agreement” on Plaintiffs’ behalf despite never being counsel of record. The Court further observed that the deal’s audit-termination and immunity provisions transgress legal limits “surely known by former White House Counsel,” including 26 U.S.C. § 7217 and the Constitution Article II’s prohibition on a President receiving emoluments from the United States beyond his fixed compensation. As a Rule 11 sanction, the Court ordered that all of Mr. Epstein’s future applications for pro hac vice admission in the Southern District of Florida be denied for one year or until further order of the Court; as Plaintiffs’ counsel, he also falls within the scope of the monetary sanctions the Court found appropriate under its inherent authority.
Alejandro Brito — Counsel of Record for Plaintiffs (Fla. Bar No. 98442). Mr. Brito has never held a position in the federal government; his involvement with the Executive Branch however, is extensive and runs through his clients — the sitting President, the President’s sons, and the Trump Organization — in a lawsuit the Court found was, in substance, the Executive Branch suing itself. As the only attorney who signed the Complaint, Mr. Brito certified under Rule 11 that it was not presented for any improper purpose. The Court found precisely the opposite: Plaintiffs asserted claims they “knew, or should have known, were time-barred,” demanded $10 billion that bore no connection to the governing statute’s $1,000-per-violation damages measure, and — in the words of the non-party movants’ summary, which the Court expressly adopted — acted in bad faith by “collusively filing a lawsuit with claims subject to multiple dispositive defenses solely to provide cover for a collusive settlement.” Mr. Brito’s name also appears on the purported “settlement agreement,” though he did not sign it. As a Rule 11 sanction, the Court referred Mr. Brito to The Florida Bar “for its consideration, review, and determination as to whether any disciplinary action is appropriate,” directing the Clerk of Court to mail the Order to the Bar; as counsel of record for Plaintiffs, he likewise falls within the monetary sanctions the Court found appropriate under its inherent authority.
Beyond these individual measures, the Court prohibited all parties — including the United States — from ever referring to, using, offering, admitting, or citing the purported “settlement agreement” in any judicial, administrative, regulatory, arbitration, or other official proceeding. It also held that monetary sanctions against Plaintiffs and their counsel are warranted under its inherent authority, and invited the initial amici and the thirty-five former federal judges whose motion precipitated the Order to seek reimbursement of their attorneys’ fees within fourteen days.
GLOW’s Mission and The Court’s Order
Yesterday’s Order is a case study in why GLOW exists. The Government Lawyers Database documents precisely this conduct — legal and professional sanctions, judicial criticism, factually inaccurate statements, conflicts of interest and misuse of position, and conduct undermining the integrity of the legal profession — and the Court’s findings today implicate every one of those categories. GLOW’s volunteers will create or update database profiles for Acting Attorney General Blanche, Associate Attorney General Woodward, Mr. Epstein, and Mr. Brito, each linked to the Court’s Order and the underlying record so that researchers, reporters, state bar officials, and the public can evaluate the documents for themselves.
Just as importantly, GLOW’s mission is to celebrate integrity. GLOW commends Treasury Department General Counsel Brian Morrissey, who resigned the day the purported “settlement” was announced rather than lend it his name; the court-appointed amici curiae — John Gleeson, David A. O’Neil, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Faith E. Gay, Philippe Z. Selendy, and Corey Stoughton — who briefed the jurisdictional questions the parties refused to answer and declined any compensation for their service; and the thirty-five former federal judges, former government officials, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and Public Citizen, whose persistence brought the collusion to light. Like the career prosecutors GLOW honored earlier this year for resigning rather than participate in the weaponization of the Department of Justice, they are the reason the rule of law endures.
“No one should mistake how rare this is: a federal court finding that the sitting leadership of the Department of Justice helped engineer a collusive attempt on the public fisc, and sending its findings to their bar regulators,” Marian added. “Those regulators now have the record in front of them. GLOW will make sure that record is preserved, sourced, and searchable — for posterity.”
Join the Mission
GLOW invites the public to:
Read the Court’s Order in Trump v. Internal Revenue Service: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.706172/gov.uscourts.flsd.706172.106.0.pdfVisit the Government Lawyers Database at glowlaw.org.Make a tax-deductible donation to support the database’s development, security, and expansion.Volunteer to help with legal research, writing, or web development.Join GLOW’s mailing list for updates on new profiles and accountability news.
About GLOW
GLOW – Government Lawyers Oversight Watchdog is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in April 2025 to document the professional conduct of government attorneys and to promote commitment to the rule of law. Through the freely accessible Government Lawyers Database at glowlaw.org, GLOW compiles public, document-linked records of how lawyers have conducted themselves while serving in or representing the U.S. Executive Branch — and honors as “Defenders of the Rule of Law” those who uphold their oath, sometimes at great personal cost.
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