The U.S. Justice Department made an illegal deal with President Donald Trump to immunize him, his family and his businesses from audits or other federal probes related to past filings, a group of tax experts and former Internal Revenue Service officials told a judge.
The settlement, part of a broader agreement to resolve Trump's controversial
"The termination of tax audits alone could save his businesses $100 million or more," according to the group, which includes former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and former Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division Kathryn Keneally. "This appears to be a special deal just for President Trump, as DOJ is continuing to defend other cases involving similar leaks of taxpayer information."
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who had earlier closed the case after it settled, is considering reopening it to investigate whether the president and the Justice Department defrauded the court by filing a "collusive" lawsuit. It's the latest fallout from the Justice Department's controversial settlement with Trump, the first president to sue his own government.
A spokesman for Trump's legal team defended the deal.
"The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to the New York Times, ProPublica and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people," the spokesman said Monday.
The other part of the settlement was the creation of a $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of political "weaponization." However, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that plan has been scrapped after a bipartisan outcry, though the audit immunization deal will remain.
Trump in January sued the IRS — an agency he controls — over the unauthorized leak of his tax information to the press in 2019. The suit effectively put Trump in control of both sides of the litigation, with taxpayers on the hook for any settlement.
On May 18, the president agreed to drop the suit in exchange for the government creating the "weaponization" fund, which many Democrats said would be used to enrich his allies and supporters. The next day, the Justice Department agreed to immunize Trump as part of the same settlement.
In assessing the possible value of the immunity deal to the president and his businesses, the group cited a potential tax liability stemming from an IRS probe of Trump's Chicago tower that was underway as of 2024. They said the immunity is particularly inappropriate because it relates to matters that go well beyond the claims in Trump's lawsuit.
"The unprecedented immunity order is a brazen, but ultimately illegal, gift to President Trump," the group said.
The Constitution bars presidents from receiving any "emolument" from the government while they're in office. The definition of "emolument" was the subject of litigation during Trump's first term and wasn't resolved by the time he left, but it generally is interpreted to mean a profit or financial benefit.
Late last week, the Justice Department
