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In a landmark legal ruling that has sent shockwaves through U.S. political circles, a federal district judge has struck down a controversial agreement between sitting President Donald Trump and federal agencies that would have granted him broad immunity from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax audits and authorized an abandoned $1.8 billion fund for alleged political targeting victims. The proposed “anti-weaponization” fund, which was introduced back in May as part of a deal to drop Trump’s $10 billion personal lawsuit against the IRS, was rejected by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on the grounds that the underlying lawsuit was filed for an improper purpose. Beyond voiding the entire settlement, Williams also referred one of Trump’s personal attorneys to state regulatory authorities to investigate potential ethics violations and consider disciplinary action.

The 2026 lawsuit at the center of the ruling was brought by Trump, two of his sons, and the Trump Organization against the nation’s tax collection agency. In her scathing 15-page ruling, Judge Williams rejected the framing of the case as a traditional adversarial legal dispute. Instead, she argued that the lawsuit was coordinated between Trump-aligned attorneys and individuals claiming to have been targeted by the federal government, with no genuine intention of resolving a legitimate legal or factual conflict between Trump and the IRS — an agency that Trump currently controls as President. Williams wrote that the entire settlement was a deliberate attempt to legitimize an arrangement that grants legal immunity to Trump and his affiliated associates, while siphoning billions of taxpayer dollars to address grievances that are not even recognized under existing federal law.

As part of the ruling, Williams barred all parties involved in the case, including Trump and his sons, from referencing the terms of the voided settlement in any future legal proceedings. The decision paves the way for the IRS to resume long-stalled audits of Trump’s personal and business tax returns, a development that carries significant legal and political risk for the sitting president.

The origins of the original lawsuit trace back to a high-profile 2020 tax leak, just weeks before that year’s presidential election, which Trump lost. A former IRS contractor named Charles Littlejohn leaked Trump’s confidential tax records to *The New York Times*, which published an investigation revealing that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he was first elected president, and paid no federal income taxes at all in 10 of the 15 years preceding his first victory. Notably, Trump did not move forward with his legal claims over the leak until he returned to the White House after the 2024 election, when he appointed allies to top roles at the Department of Justice (DOJ), including a former attorney who represented individuals that stood to benefit from the proposed anti-weaponization fund.

“These officials then negotiated on behalf of the United States, with his current lawyers, including his former White House Counsel to reach a ‘settlement.’ It is risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the Parties,” Williams wrote in her ruling.

Alongside voiding the settlement, the judge imposed professional sanctions on two of Trump’s legal team members. Lead attorney Alejandro Brito was referred to the Florida Bar for potential disciplinary action over ethics violations, while a second attorney, Daniel Epstein, was banned from representing clients in the U.S. Southern District Court of Florida for a minimum of one year.

In a written statement provided to the BBC, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team defended the President’s actions, arguing that the IRS “wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information” to the media. The statement added that “President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”

Legal and tax policy experts have widely condemned the original settlement as an unprecedented example of presidential self-dealing. Brandon DeBot, Policy Director at the New York University-based Tax Law Center, described the deal as a “sweetheart deal” that granted Trump unauthorized and historically unprecedented exemptions from standard IRS audit rules, undermining core safeguards designed to prevent political interference in the U.S. tax system. DeBot noted that while the court’s ruling is a critical step forward, Congress still needs to pass formal legislation to fully invalidate all provisions of the deal and block future attempts at self-serving political action by a sitting president. “The court’s decision is important, but does not remove the need for congressional action to nullify the entire deal and to prevent any similar attempts at presidential self-dealing in the future,” DeBot told the BBC.

Plans for the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund were already scrapped in early June, just seven days after a separate federal judge issued a temporary order blocking the DOJ from moving forward with its implementation. That preliminary injunction came in response to a separate lawsuit filed in Virginia by two men who alleged the fund’s eligibility rules were discriminatory. The two plaintiffs claimed they had been targeted for political retribution by the Trump administration but would be barred from accessing compensation through the fund.

From its announcement, the fund drew fierce criticism from lawmakers across both major political parties, with Democrats and a faction of Republicans raising alarms that the fund could be used to pay compensation to individuals charged and convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, including those who were found guilty of assaulting police officers during the insurrection.

Long-serving South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham died Saturday at the age of 71 from a life-threatening aortic tear, leaving a sudden vacancy in the U.S. Senate that has sparked a process to fill the seat ahead of November’s general election. Graham, who had already secured the Republican Party’s nomination to run for another term this fall, built a deeply close lifelong bond with his younger sister, Darline Nordone, shaped by an early family tragedy that tied the two together forever.

When the siblings were still young, their parents passed away within just 15 months of one another. At the time, Graham was 22 years old, while Nordone was only 13. As he went on to build his career through law school, service in the U.S. Air Force, and decades of public office, he remained her closest guardian, eventually legally adopting her to ensure she could access his military benefits if anything unexpected happened to him. In a 2015 interview with *The New York Times*, Nordone described Graham as “a brother, a father and a mother rolled into one”, reflecting the unique, all-encompassing role he played in her life. A mother of two who currently works to connect people with disabilities to stable employment, Nordone has stood by her brother through every step of his decades-long political career; Graham even once joked that she would serve as his first lady if he had won the presidency.

Following Graham’s passing, former U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly thrown his support behind Nordone to serve as the interim senator filling the vacancy until the newly elected senator takes office in January. On his social platform Truth Social, Trump released a post Monday stating that he had recommended Nordone to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who holds the constitutional authority to appoint a temporary replacement for the vacant seat. “This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly,” Trump wrote in his post.

Trump’s endorsement is not the only one backing Nordone for the temporary role: South Carolina’s other sitting Republican Senator Tim Scott has also publicly expressed his support, telling CBS News that she “would be a wonderful placeholder” for the seat ahead of November’s vote. Multiple other Republican candidates have already publicly announced their intention to run for the full Senate term in the upcoming general election, following Graham’s unexpected passing.

Governor McMaster has scheduled a formal news conference for 16:00 EDT Monday, where he plans to first reflect on Graham’s life and decades of public service, before officially announcing his appointment to fill the ongoing Senate vacancy. As of Monday afternoon, Nordone has not released any public statement responding to her brother’s death or the proposal to appoint her to the interim Senate seat.

After four weeks of public speculation following his mid-June hospitalization, 82-year-old Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, has released his first detailed public statement addressing his health condition, confirming he will not return to Capitol Hill to resume his voting duties in the near term.

The Kentucky Republican, who has long dealt with lingering mobility challenges stemming from a childhood case of polio, opened up about the difficulties of aging in the public eye in the written statement released by his office on Sunday. “You all know how folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older,” McConnell wrote. “Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct – I can’t help it.”

McConnell detailed the sequence of events that led to his hospitalization, which was admitted on June 14. He explained that his long-standing mobility issues have become increasingly difficult to manage with age, and last month he suffered a fall that left him briefly unconscious, prompting an emergency trip to the hospital. In the statement, he addressed widespread rumors about serious underlying health issues, clarifying that medical tests ruled out the most severe outcomes: “My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages.”

Despite the reassuring news on major health scares, McConnell confirmed that during his weeks of care, he was diagnosed with and has been treating a mild case of pneumonia. He has since transitioned from acute hospital care to an inpatient rehabilitation facility to continue his recovery.

Acknowledging the frustration of the delayed recovery process, McConnell said he will follow his medical team’s guidance and delay his return to the Senate floor. “As much as it frustrates me, this process takes time. And on the advice of my doctors, I won’t be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet,” he added.

Public and congressional pressure for transparency around McConnell’s health grew steadily this week, as his hospitalization approached the one-month mark. Since his admission, McConnell’s team had released only sparse updates: a brief July 2 statement confirming he was “receiving excellent care” and “continues to improve”, with no additional details on his diagnosis or treatment plan. Prior to Sunday’s statement, McConnell had not made any public appearances or released any official images since entering care, with only a small number of unpublicized private phone calls reported.

Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican senator whose 23-year congressional career became a defining case study of the seismic political shift that reshaped the U.S. Republican Party during the rise of Donald Trump, has died at the age of 71. Widely remembered as a skilled political survivor, Graham’s ideological and tactical trajectory over decades traced the growing influence of populist conservatism that upended traditional GOP politics. Throughout his tenure, he retained a set of core policy positions: a staunchly hawkish foreign policy centered on containing Russian expansion, unwavering support for Israel, and a longstanding call for regime change in Iran. Yet what marked his career most profoundly was his willingness to adapt to the shifting partisan currents that accompanied Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party.

Graham launched his Senate career in 2002, quickly emerging as a close ally to legendary Arizona Republican senator John McCain, a staunch conservative who built a national reputation for his willingness to buck party orthodoxy and work across the aisle. When Graham launched his own 2016 presidential bid, bipartisan cooperation and de-escalating partisan tensions sat at the heart of his campaign platform. “If I get to be president, we’re going to open up a bar in the White House,” he once joked. “We’re going to get liquored up and solve problems.”

His early relationship with Trump was defined by open, ferocious hostility. When Trump infamously mocked McCain’s status as a Vietnam War prisoner of war — declaring at a rally “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured” — Graham hit back, calling the New York real estate developer a “jackass” unfit for the presidency. Trump retaliated by publicizing Graham’s personal phone number at a rally, flooding the senator’s phone with thousands of angry messages, a confrontation that ended with Graham posting a viral stunt video destroying a stack of his own phones in protest.

As Graham’s presidential campaign collapsed in 2015, he doubled down on his criticism, labeling Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” In a viral May 2016 tweet that would later be repeatedly cited by his critics, Graham warned that nominating Trump for president would lead to electoral disaster, writing “if the Republican Party chooses Trump as its nominee it ‘will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.’” Graham remained openly opposed to Trump through the 2016 general election against Hillary Clinton, refusing to back either major party nominee and instead supporting independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin.

But once Trump secured an upset victory in 2016, Graham dramatically shifted his stance. As Trump consolidated total control over the Republican Party during his first term, Graham evolved from a fierce critic into one of Trump’s most vocal congressional allies and close personal friends. The pair regularly golfed together, and Graham, a staple of cable news political programming, used his platform to repeatedly defend Trump and his policy agenda. His most high-profile intervention on Trump’s behalf came during the 2018 Supreme Court confirmation battle for Brett Kavanaugh, when Graham aggressively pushed back against sexual assault allegations against the nominee (who denied all wrongdoing), helping to push through confirmation by the narrowest possible margin.

Graham’s only major break from Trump came after the 2020 presidential election, when Trump lost to Joe Biden — a former Senate colleague of Graham’s, whom Graham once described as “the nicest person I’ve ever met in politics.” When a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, disrupting the certification of Biden’s victory and forcing Graham and other lawmakers to evacuate for safety, Graham announced he was cutting all political ties with the outgoing president. “Trump and I had a hell of a journey,” he said at the time. “I hate it to end this way… All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.”

Yet the break proved temporary. Just weeks later, Graham voted to acquit Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial over the Capitol attack. As Trump began building his 2024 comeback campaign for the Republican nomination, Graham once again lined up behind his former rival, framing his earlier break as a reaction to a singular moment rather than a long-term rejection. “He was a very good president from my point of view,” Graham explained in a 2023 interview with the BBC. “I am judging him by what he did as president.” After Trump won re-election in 2024, Graham returned to his role as a reliable ally, consistently backing Trump’s cabinet and judicial nominees, supporting his legislative agenda, and praising Trump’s military actions in the Middle East, even as he encouraged Trump to continue U.S. strikes until the Iranian regime collapsed. Though he publicly pushed for greater U.S. military support for Ukraine amid its war against Russia, he softened his criticism of Trump’s friendly overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin and refused to back new Russian sanctions without Trump’s explicit approval.

Despite his deep alignment with Trump, Graham retained longstanding personal friendships with Democratic lawmakers across the aisle, a fact reflected in the widespread cross-partisan condolences that poured out after his death, even from outspoken Trump critics including California’s Adam Schiff and Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren. Trump himself acknowledged Graham’s unique cross-party ability during a Sunday morning television interview: “He was able to deal with Democrats. If I had a problem with a Democrat, he could work it out.”

Graham’s relationship with anti-Trump Republicans was far more complicated, however. “Before Trump, we were friends,” former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who served on the bipartisan committee investigating the January 6 attack, posted on X. “I choose to remember the man I knew before our paths diverged — the one who cared deeply about America’s role in the world and wasn’t afraid to see suffering up close.”

Graham’s sudden death has created immediate upheaval for congressional Republicans and South Carolina’s GOP establishment. Graham, who had already secured the Republican nomination unopposed for a new six-year Senate term in the upcoming 2026 general election, was seeking re-election, leaving the party scrambling to fill the vacant spot. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, will appoint an interim replacement to serve the remainder of 2026, and the state party will hold a new primary to select a general election candidate for November. While South Carolina is a deeply reliable red state, political analysts note that if Trump’s approval ratings remain stagnant and Republicans face strong national headwinds this cycle, the party will be forced to divert extra resources to defend the now-open seat, a race that was previously considered safe. Whoever wins the nomination will enter Congress as a junior senator, lacking the decades of seniority, institutional influence, and access to power that Graham built over his tenure through one of the most tumultuous eras in modern American political history.

Veteran Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a towering figure in U.S. defense and foreign policy circles and a close ally of former President Donald Trump, has passed away at the end of last week following a sudden, short illness, his office confirmed in an official statement.

The statement, released shortly after his passing, noted that Graham died on Saturday evening. In the midst of their grief, the senator’s family requested privacy while asking for the public’s thoughts and prayers during this extraordinarily challenging time.

First elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, Graham built a decades-long career marked by outsized influence in Washington. Over his tenure, he rose to chair the Senate Budget Committee, and emerged as one of the most prominent and frequently cited voices on national security and international affairs across Capitol Hill. Long a fixture in bipartisan and Republican policy debates, he maintained a close political alliance with Trump that shaped many GOP policy positions through multiple presidential cycles.

In what would be his final public overseas trip before his death, Graham had just returned to the U.S. from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the Friday before his passing. A lifelong and outspoken advocate for robust U.S. military and diplomatic support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion, Graham repeatedly warned of the broader geopolitical consequences of Russian victory. In a 2023 interview with the BBC, he argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not limit his expansionist ambitions to Ukraine, adding that a faltering Western commitment to Kyiv would ultimately threaten security in the Indo-Pacific, specifically the status of Taiwan.

News of his sudden passing has already drawn reactions across political circles in Washington, closing out a decades-long career that shaped U.S. foreign and domestic policy for more than two decades.