How a new court Order means Trump’s slush fund is now in peril

In a significant development the court has now re-opened the litigation which had ended in the supposed ‘settlement’ of a slush fund for President Trump’s political supporters.

You may recall that this blog has previously covered this extraordinary case.

The story so far in essence:

– Trump (and his son and company) brought a largely contrived case against his own government for inflated damages of $10 billion;

– the court rightly doubted that this was an actual dispute between the parties, and so required further submissions on jurisdiction;

– just before the deadline for those submissions, Trump and his co-plaintiffs pulled their claim, leading the court to formally end the case;

– there was then a supposed “settlement” between the parties but without any court recognition which purported to set up a $1.776 billion slush fund and also to grant legal immunity for Trump and others;

– but this ‘settlement’ has been challenged by former Capitol police and also by a group of former federal judges.

Well, the action brought by the group of former federal judges has actually gained some traction.

The judge has now re-opened the case.

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Here is the online docket, and sometimes dockets are a form of poetry.

You can see on 18 May 2026 the case was closed, and then on 27-29 there was an application and then an Order to re-open the case.

You may recall from an earlier post that the former judges are attacking the ‘settlement’ from the perspective that there was an abuse of process in pulling the case and then purporting to settle it.

The judge now has re-opened the case, and she is now asking for even more submissions from the parties.

This places the parties in a far worse position than they were on the eve of the case being pulled. And here there seems to be no way out for the parties by trying to pull and ‘settle’ the case again. They have to come up with the submissions, else presumably the the case will be struck out.

You will see that those challenging the ‘settlement’ can, in turn, make submissions in reply.

This is a huge set-back for the parties setting up this slush-fund on the back of a ‘settlement’. If the case is struck out, there is nothing to settle, and so there cannot be any kind of ‘settlement’.

The rug is being pulled.

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There is so, so much wrong with this case, from every angle. It is like an implausible exam question for law students. This is not what litigation is for and this is not what settlements are for.

But at least now there is a chance for the court to self-correct the excesses of the parties, for if the case is struck out there cannot be a ‘settlement’ – either recognised by the court or otherwise.

Let’s keep watching.

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