Judge Warns Trump Could Fleece Public With $10B IRS Lawsuit

Daily Beast – no paywall: “A federal judge is holding up Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department until his lawyers can convince her it’s legal for a president to take his own federal agencies to court for money. Trump is the ultimate boss of the agencies he’s suing, so there doesn’t appear to be any real “adversary,” as required by courts, noted Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida, where the suit was filed. In this case, that would mean no one is legitimately arguing on behalf of the public interest. “There must be an honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual against another, which is neither feigned nor collusive,” she added, quoting a previous decision. The parties may not be “sufficiently adverse” to one another for the case to be allowed to continue, she warned. In fact, Trump’s “named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction,” she underscored in an order Friday. Williams ordered Trump’s lawyers and the Department of Justice to submit briefs about why the case should proceed, and set a hearing on the issue for next month…”