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This is about the fiftieth time I've seen this brought up in this thread alone and my head is about to explode because people evidently don't understand the difference between a plaintiff and a defendant in litigation. These aren't just arbitrary labels we give the parties, but important distinctions. They indicate who initiated the litigation and delineate various burdens and obligations. The plaintiff is the person who initiates the suit, alleging that they have been wronged by the defendant. The plaintiff has the obligation of producing evidence to support their claim and to meet the burden that the law requires. If the case involves money damages, a jury decides if the defendant is liable and if so, how much he owes. But juries can be unpredictable, and in most cases, the parties involved have a good idea of what the case is worth, so usually they'll agree to settle the case before it gets that far.
In the cases you're referring to, the government was the plaintiff. They thought certain companies had broken the law, and sued them to collect money damages. the government did not control these companies, and the only way they could get them to pay anything is if they either got a judgment against them or the threat of a judgment induced them to settle. In these cases, the companies had the option of either settling or letting a jury decide how much they would pay, and they decided that they were better off settling. In the Trump case, the government was the defendant. Full disclosure: I am an attorney who represents defendants in civil suits. We almost always settle these suits before trial. I can confidently say that, at no time in my firm's history have we ever settled a case for several thousand times the previous highest settlement for the same cause of action, let alone without seeing any of the evidence.
Another important thing is that, in the cases you're referring to, no one in the Justice Department who was involved in the litigation was also working for the companies who were sued in a position where they could sign off on the settlement. When that happens it's called a conflict of interest. If, for instance, the attorney handling the Volkswagen case was also on the board of directors for Volkswagen, that would be very bad. You see, government lawyers work for the American people, and as much as we may disagree with the current administration's priorities, most of us agree that that it would be very bad if he let Volkswagen off easy because he didn't want it to affect the stock price too much. On the other hand, he also has a duty to Volkswagen shareholders, who wouldn't want him to make a bad deal so that he can curry favor with his politician bosses. For this reason, governments and companies have policies in place that discuss what to do if one of these conflicts exists. Generally speaking, you want to be as up-front about a conflict as you can, and there are very strict ethical guidelines that must be followed.
For example, I used to represent a company that my dad worked for. That's not a conflict in itself, but if my dad sued the company, I wouldn't be allowed to defend them, because I might not be fair. In a similar vein, even though I don't represent the company anymore, I can't represent someone who is suing them for certain things, because I was entrusted with certain knowledge of their legal strategy that wouldn't be fair for the plaintiff to have. If I represent the company in my dad's suit, and we settled, and the company were to find out about it, that would be grounds for them to vacate the settlement agreement. I would also get sued for malpractice and find myself in front of an ethics panel, but that's another story. Luckily, as far as I know, nobody who was involved in the cases you refer to had a conflict of interest. We can thus assume that these settlements were made at arm's length, which means that both sides were negotiating in good faith and not trying to sandbag their cases.
In the Trump IRS case, Trump was the plaintiff, meaning that he was trying to get as much money as possible. He was also the defendant, in the sense that he was the immediate supervisor of the person authorized to spend the defendant's money. But that money wasn't his to spend however he wanted; he owed a duty to the people to spend it in accordance with the law and not simply take it for himself. When politicians take public money for themselves, that's called corruption. We usually don't have to worry about corruption in these cases because most of the attorneys who work for the government have traditionally taken their jobs very seriously and tried to make sure that the money was only spent if absolutely necessary. When Todd Blanche announced a deal where Trump would be paid approximately 500 times the largest tax disclosure settlement in IRS history despite not seeing any evidence that it was warranted, that's called the appearance of impropriety. When Obama, or Eric Holder, or whoever, wanted to make their deals, they had to persuade their adversaries that they would lose in court and were better off agreeing to a deal. They didn't have the luxury of simply instructing the CEO of Volkswagen or whoever to make the payments. The fact that Trump did have that kind of power is why this case is more concerning than anything Obama did.
I apologize for the condescending tone, but I get frustrated when I see an understanding of civil procedure below that of the average People's Court viewer and an understanding of ethics that would get them fired from any normal job.
The government has been defendants in Keepseagle v. Vilsack or Cobell v. Salazar.
I get what you are saying this looks like and is obvious corruption. I don't disagree!
I would be happy and thrilled for a rule to exist that prevents this sort of thing. Or at least for the rules that should prevent it to be strictly enforced.
Trump banned this practice via an agency directive in 2017 and the Biden administration overturned that ban.
This second trump admin approach might be much more successful in actually banning the practice.
Those two cases are class actions and subject to strict court supervision before settlement can be finalized. The Trump ban only applied in cases where the government was plaintiff, and would have no applicability here.
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