No President in our history has ever sued the federal government that he leads. But Donald Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion because an IRS contractor released his tax returns during his first term in office. The public and the media learned that in some years, he paid no taxes and in one year, his tax payment was a total of $750.

He was insulted and “damaged” by the leak of his tax returns, but every other president since Richard Nixon in 1973 has released his tax returns (Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, released a summary of his returns).

Right before the case went to trial, Trump and Todd Blanche, the acting U.S. Attorney General, reached a deal and withdrew the lawsuit. Even before the trial got started, Federal Judge Kathlyn Williams, who would hear the case, wondered whether there were any real adversaries or was Trump suing himself.

Although other presidents released their tax returns to show they had no conflicts of interest, Trump broke this tradition. During his first term in office, he repeatedly said that he would release his returns when the IRS finished auditing them. A decade later, his taxes were never released. This must be the longest audit in history. By now, the public understands that he will never release his tax returns.

The deal was that Trump would “settle” for the establishment of a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to pay to people who claimed to have been wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department. Trump would chair the board of the fund and have the power to remove other board members. In short, Trump would control a slush fund for his allies, not only the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021, but other friends such Mike Lindell (the My Pillow Guy), Roger Stone, John Eastman, Rudy Guiliani, and others who joined Trump in claiming that the 2020 was “rigged.” Even rioters who had struck and injured police officers would be eligible.

In a separate agreement, Blanche signed a document declaring that the IRS would not audit Trump nor members of his family nor his companies. Presently, Trump owes the IRS over $100 million because of a disputed deduction. That debt would go away. What was unclear in this agreement was whether this audit exemption applied not only to the past and present but also the future.

The uproar against this deal was bipartisan. Republican members of Congress spoke out against the slush fund. During the upcoming election, they could not defend federal payouts to insurrectionists, especially those who attacked law officers.

At hearings, Todd Blanche said the slush fund was dead (insurrectionists can still sue the Justice Department and win compensation). Trump has never said so.

But one part of the deal was left intact: the agreement that Trump and family would not be audited by the IRS.

This deal outrages me. Why should the Trump family and their business ventures be shielded from tax audits? Why not me? Why not you? Why not everyone who pays taxes?

“Maybe he doesn’t want the American people … to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes…”

Trump has a long and well-documented history of tax avoidance.

In the first presidential debate of 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Trump–at Hofstra University on September 16, 2026–Clinton said:

Trump immediately replied:

“That makes me smart.”  

He added that if he had paid more taxes, the money would have been “squandered” by the government.

I remember thinking when he said that, “If everyone dodged their taxes or used every loophole, how would the U.S. fund its military or pay for Medicare or function in any way?”

This is not a man who should be exempt from IRS audits, nor should Eric, Don Jr. or the rest of the rapacious family and their corporate entities.

When Todd Blanche testified to Congress in defense of the agreement to protect the Trump family from IRS audits, Democrats expressed outrage:

Senator Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon said:

“It’s the ultimate case of an ultrawealthy individual living under one set of rules while everybody else lives under another,” Wyden said, adding about Trump: “I take it as an admission of his own guilt when it comes to tax cheating.”

Ranking Member Sen. Ron Wyden speaks during a hearing with Internal Revenue Service Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano on April 15, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Rep. Ron Wyden (D), Oregon

Bessent “owes the committee an explanation of what the Treasury knows about the dirty settlement,” noting the Treasury Department’s role as both “defendant and a negotiator” in Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS.

“This is an abuse of the IRS that goes way beyond anything that I have any familiarity with…

“Trump has set the new high water mark for public corruption… everybody in 🇺🇸 is subject to IRS audit except the Trumps. I take it as an admission of his own guilt when it comes to tax cheating. Trumps have stuffed every dollar they can into their pockets.”

A tweet: Why does a president need immunity from committing TAX FRAUD unless he is and has been committing tax fraud?

I hope that someone is planning to take legal action. This deal is unethical, dishonest, and just plain wrong.

But lawyer Elie Honig wrote that Trump is likely to keep his audit exemption because no one is injured by his deal and no one has standing to sue.