WASHINGTON — Top Republicans aren’t eager to discuss the prospect of President Donald Trump ordering his own administration to pay him as much as $10 billion in a legal settlement.
Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service in January, after he’d been back in office a year, over the unlawful release of his tax returns by a government contractor during his first term. The New York Times reported this week that Trump’s attorneys are in settlement talks with the Justice Department, aiming to reach an agreement before a judge has a chance to throw the case out.
Though Trump sued for $10 billion — a sum that would double his net worth, which has already grown by leaps and bounds during his presidency because of his family’s cryptocurrency investments — it seems unlikely he will ultimately receive such a large payout.
On Wednesday, Republicans largely tried to dodge questions about the case, which presents a clear conflict of interest for a president who has claimed unprecedented amounts of direct authority over government agencies, including the IRS and the Justice Department. The GOP is already facing political headaches over a different aspect of Trump’s self-aggrandizement, with many Republicans balking at spending $1 billion on his ballroom project.
“One of the things that is not in my purview is the Department of Justice and how they evaluate cases,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Wednesday in response to a question from HuffPost. “I haven’t thought about that or read into it. I got enough to say grace over every day. Go ask the executive branch about it.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. The Justice Department said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)03:50:45
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the current leader of the Justice Department and a former personal attorney of Trump’s, ignored a question about the case when he visited the Capitol on Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he was unfamiliar with the case. He asked HuffPost to clarify whether Trump’s complaint asked for $10 million or $10 billion and seemed surprised by the answer.
“Billion. Ten billion. That is news to me,” Thune said before walking into his office.
Trump has suggested he would donate the funds from the lawsuit to charity. The Times reported that one settlement option would involve no monetary compensation but require the IRS to cease all audits of Trump’s and his family members’ tax returns. The president has separately demanded that the Justice Department pay him $230 million for its criminal investigations of him after his first presidency.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the IRS consultant who leaked Trump’s tax information to reporters got off easy. The D.C. resident was sentenced to five years in prison for disclosing tax information about thousands of wealthy individuals, including Trump.
“What happened to the president is as wrong as it gets,” Jordan told HuffPost. “The guy who did it, that guy got next to nothing. So I can understand why the president is ticked about it.”
Trump broke with years of precedent by not voluntarily releasing his tax returns when he first ran for president and then after assuming office. The New York Times used the information it obtained to show how Trump used business losses to avoid paying taxes.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said it would arguably not be improper if the president went to court, proved his case and was awarded damages by a jury. But settling out of court would be unethical.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)03:51:46
“It is an outrageous conflict of interest, obviously,” Raskin told HuffPost. “The basic principle of American jurisprudence is that you can’t be a judge in your own case.”
Raskin said Trump accepting payment from the government beyond his salary would also violate the Constitution’s domestic Emoluments Clause, which says the president’s pay can’t be increased or diminished during his term. Raskin and other Democrats introduced legislation last month to ban the president and vice president from collecting settlements from the government.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a moderate Republican who is not running for reelection, said he was unfamiliar with the president’s legal complaint, but didn’t hesitate to criticize the idea of the Trump administration settling with Trump’s personal attorneys.
“It’s like negotiating with yourself how much money I’m gonna owe me. I don’t think it’s right. I think it looks bad,” Bacon said.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who is overseeing the case in the Southern District of Florida, set a deadline of May 20 for the parties to submit memorandums addressing whether the court even has jurisdiction and whether the president has a conflict of interest. “[A]lthough President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction,” she pointed out.
If Williams, nominated by President Barack Obama in 2011, decides the two parties in the case aren’t actually opponents, she could toss the lawsuit entirely.
So far, the government hasn’t responded in court. Trump’s attorneys said in a filing last month that the two sides are “in discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation.” Williams likely wouldn’t have any say over a private settlement.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)03:56:55
when can this fucking loser get impeached?
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)03:58:22
>>1514847 >Why won't this corrupt administration hold itself accountable for it's corruption?
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)04:01:36
You know, maybe the pronouns really were the lesser evil.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)04:04:45
>>1514848 what about the civil service? the legislature? the courts? where are the republicans of conscience? why isn't anyone fucking doing anything???
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)04:31:20
>>1514850 >what about the civil service? Purged of anyone that ever touched an investigation into Trump as well as anyone not sufficiently Republican enough >the legislature? Republican >the courts? Fundamentally reactive and also mostly Republican due to the blocking and slow walking of judicial appointees by Republican legislators >where are the republicans of conscience? The what now? >why isn't anyone fucking doing anything??? Her emails and the price of eggs
People are getting what they voted for. Don't like it, then vote against it.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)04:34:26
Trump always donates his salary. It's about time the country gave back to such a great man, and righting this wrong without putting him through a lengthy trial is just one way we need to do it. We'll never be able to fully pay him back for what he has given to this country.
...is what you can expect to here from Republicans after Trump triples his net worth off our backs.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)07:29:24
>>1514849 Nah. The pronoun people are terrorists. Best to demolish the Democrat party and scatter all the squatters.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)07:30:47
>>1514850 The 'people of conscience' are out firebomning ICE and breaking the law to get dRumpf.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)09:03:11
>>1514850 >Civil service Purged or toothless. >the legislature? Part of the corrupt administration. >the courts? Powerless. The corrupt administration controls law enforcement, so no laws matter. >where are the republicans of conscience? ahahahahahahaha >why isn't anyone fucking doing anything??? Like what?
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)13:01:17
>>1514865 >I'm on HRT because I want tits >TERRORISM What mental illness is this called?
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)13:46:03
>>1514865 And it was internet posts like this that memed trump into the white house
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)13:53:14
They don't care one way or another. Trump was absolutely correct when he stated that he could go out on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and not lose a single voter. It's a cult.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)15:12:05
>>1514883 >You will bake the cake >You will use the pronouns >You will be banned from polite society and your livelihood if you don't do what we say
NTA, but nah, they're definitely terrorists. Hopefully every last one of them hangs.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)15:19:40
>>1514893 Show us another cantidate that will deport the browns and we'll consider him. It was a single-issue vote and the Dems are refusing to address that single issue.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)15:26:39
>>1514906 It really wasn't. There was so much wrong last time Dems had power that it was over. Maybe you could say it was in 2016, but I don't think it was then either. Of course there's nothing wrong with being a single issue voter. Most Dems do it out of habit because of abortion. They have no single issue they're known for now, aside from terrorism.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)15:40:41
>>1514903 Actual mental illness. Who was it who got people fired for cracking jokes about Charlie Kirk again? >>1514906 America is a nation of immigrants.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)15:49:53
>>1514903 >>You will be banned from polite society lmao, incel chuds will never be let back into society. you're useful idiots for Israel until its time for you to be converted into fertilizer there will be no femboy tradwifes
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)15:51:30
>>1514910 >America is a nation of immigrants. So is South America. The difference is those euros came from Spain.
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)15:51:59
>>1514916 >Let back into >Implying Chuds aren't the overwhelming majority of society and need to be let back in by the likes of faggots
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)15:54:00
>>1514921 >Chuds >overwhelming majority of society looool the overwhelming majority of society are ziolibs or ziocons actual chuddery or communism is very fringe
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Anonymous05/14/26(Thu)17:01:16
>>1514910 America is a nation of settlers who tried their absolute hardest to get immigrants to fuck off, its our government that keeps selling them citizenship to grow the market cap.
We are not, and never have been, a nation of immigrants. If your ancestors didn't exterminate the Native Americans you don't belong here.