Column: A Trump judge just overturned the government's most effective anti-fraud tool, which has stood for 150 years

A federal judge in Florida has declared a key provision of the law unconstitutional.

Michael Hiltzik : The provision concerns so-called " qui tam actions," in which private litigants bring lawsuits on behalf of the government as well as themselves.

Without the law, the government might never even know about most of the $75 billion in fraud that was unearthed, he says.

The ruling came from federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle , whom Trump named to the bench in 2020 .

David Rothkopf : The Supreme Court shouldn't let the government intervene in qui tam lawsuits.

He says the government declines to intervene in the majority of qui tam cases , but it's now 80% of those cases.

Rothpf: Justices Thomas , Kavanaugh, Barrett and Barrett have said they'd be open to considering the issue in an appropriate case.

A successful attack on qui tam lawsuits would mean the end of efforts that brought $53 billion in recoveries over recent decades .

Big business has been trying to eviscerate anti-fraud laws for more than a century .

Conservatives have tried to sap the authority of presidents and federal agencies to do their work.