6 June—Last month, as everybody in the universe knows, Donald Trump settled his typically Trumpish—i.e., predictably unjustified, totally unprincipled, thoroughly vexatious—$10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department, which, had it not been aborted, likely would have been dismissed with prejudice by any federal judge not appointed by Trump (of whom there are 12 of the 18 in the Southern District of Florida, where the suit was filed), for the leak of his tax records, which he was supposed to have released himself.

The ludicrous settlement Trump essentially made with himself, with the enthusiastic complicity of Todd Blanche, his former privately retained personal shyster and currently taxpayer-retained personal shyster-cum-hit man masquerading as acting attorney general and Librarian of Congress, involved no obvious financial payouts to Trump, his family, or his and their various businesses and other grifts.

All Trump, his family, and his and their various businesses and other grifts got out of the ludicrous settlement is what amounts to a preemptive pardon—tax audit immunity, permanently barring the federal government from pursuing claims, conducting examinations, and/or auditing any tax returns filed before the settlement date. That’s all. It may be worth $100 million or so, conservatively, but that’s all Trump, his family, and his and their various businesses and other grifts got out of the settlement. Bupkes, to be sure, but, in all events, when you’re suing yourself, it’s nice to have both sides cooperating.

In addition to the preemptive pardon and Trump’s apology to himself, the only money overtly involved in the ludicrous settlement was in the addendum, a $1.776 billion typically Trumpish “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” administered by his personal shyster to compensate convicted insurrectionists and other criminals loyal to Trump. That’s what has been called by Democrats and Republicans alike “the slush fund.”

The ludicrous settlement has not been approved by any court. In fact, it was never even submitted to a judge for approval. It appears, rather, that Trump’s shysters on both sides of his case against himself did an end-run around court involvement by filing a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal with Prejudice on 18 May. When you’re suing yourself, it’s nice to have both sides cooperating.

As it happens, though, the federal judge who had been randomly assigned President Donald J. Trump v. Internal Revenue Service (1:26-cv-20609), Kathleen M. Williams, is an Obama appointee and therefore can be trusted to rule on law rather than loyalty or gratitude. So she has reopened the ludicrously dismissed case, ordering Trump’s shysters (on which side?) to respond to allegations that the lawsuit was actually a pretext to force a settlement out of court. Law rather than loyalty or gratitude.

We’ll see what happens with that when (if) a panel of two or three of the six active appellate judges (of 12 on the banc), appointed by Trump in the Eleventh Circuit gets the case. (If the case should go en banc and get a six-six decision, the ruling of the district court will be affirmed.)

In the meantime, giving credit where it’s due, it was rather clever of Trump’s shysters to come up with the criminal “weaponization” slush fund as a red herring, a decoy, a ruse to draw the attention and fire of virtually everybody so that relatively little attention and fire has been aimed at the real purpose of the ludicrous settlement—the preemptive pardon for Trump, his family, his and their various businesses and other grifts . . .