WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) – A US appeals court declined on Tuesday to immediately block sanctions against lawyers for Donald Trump who a judge accused of misusing the court system in settling a lawsuit the Republican president filed against the Internal Revenue Service.
The ruling, rejecting a request made by Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department, was issued by the Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The decision for now lets stand an order by US District Judge Kathleen Williams concluding that Trump improperly filed a $10 billion lawsuit to extract personal benefits from the US government, including a now-abandoned plan for a nearly $1.8 billion fund for his allies and protections from tax audits.
The order referred one of Trump’s personal lawyers to Florida legal disciplinary authorities and barred any of the parties in the case — including Trump, his adult sons and his namesake company — from referring to the settlement or citing any of its terms in future legal proceedings.
In their appeal of the judge’s ruling, Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department argued that it ran afoul of the US Constitution’s First Amendment protections for free speech.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis and Will Dunham)
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