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A single sheet of paper sits somewhere in the files of the Justice Department, announcing, in capital letters, that the United States is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from pursuing any claims against President Donald Trump, his two eldest sons, and the Trump Organization. One page. One signature.

Last week, Trump appealed the 56-page ruling in which Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida dismantled the settlement that produced it and sanctioned the lawyers who engineered it. Whether that page has any legal force is now a question for the court of appeals; the Senate, for its part, gave its answer by confirming the man who signed it as attorney general. The plain answer is that it has none.

In short, Trump’s tax immunity deal is unenforceable. Let me tell you why.

The lawsuit was never real. Trump sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in January, demanding $10 billion for the first-term leak of his tax returns by an IRS contractor already prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. The Justice Department, whose lawyers ultimately answer to Trump, never mounted a real defense. By May the parties—who in every practical sense were the same side—announced a settlement under which, by the Justice Department’s own description, the plaintiffs received a formal apology and no money, while the government established a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” for claimed victims of alleged Justice Department weaponization. One day later, Todd Blanche, then acting attorney general and Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer, signed an........

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