"It's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself." Imago/ZUMA Press Wire
The DOJ is considering settling Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, which could send about 10 billion taxpayer dollars directly into the president’s pockets, the New York Times reported Tuesday, citing three sources familiar with the matter.
In January, Trump and two of his sons sued the IRS, alleging that it failed to stop the unauthorized release of his tax documents by a government contractor who shared them with news outlets.
Trump oversees the IRS, the agency he is suing. (This, the Times delicately pointed out, raises some questions as to the validity of the lawsuit: “For a lawsuit to be valid, the two parties must actually be on opposite sides, otherwise the judge can throw out the case.”) The conflicts of interest don’t end there: the DOJ is led by the president’s former personal criminal defense lawyer.
If a settlement is reached, it could make it much harder for Trump’s finances to be investigated in the future: beyond the $10 billion taxpayer-fleecing operation, one of the settlement terms under review would require the IRS to drop any and all audits of Trump, his family, and his businesses.
Last month, Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill to prevent the president, the vice president, and their families from collecting settlement money from the government. “While American families are getting flattened by skyrocketing costs, Donald Trump is trying to snatch up billions of taxpayer dollars to line his own pockets and settle personal scores,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote.
And this isn’t the first time Trump has tried to use the Justice Department to profit. In October of 2025, he was reportedly seeking $230 million in damages from the Justice Department over the time federal agents seized classified documents he’d unlawfully brought to Mar-a-Lago and an earlier probe into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
“It’s awfully strange,” Trump said at the time. “To make a decision where I’m paying myself.”
