Corruption

Trump's Lawyers Insist There Is 'No Evidence' of 'Collusion or Fraud' in His 'Settlement With Myself'

The sweet deal that resolved the president's fatally flawed lawsuit against the IRS was business as usual at the DOJ, his attorneys told a federal judge.

Jacob Sullum | 6.15.2026 10:50 AM

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL Add Reason to Google

Media Contact & Reprint Requests

(Natalia Bratslavsky/Dreamstime/Jim Lo Scalzo/UPI/Newscom)

"I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself," President Donald Trump told reporters a few days after he sued the IRS. He wasn't kidding: His January 29 lawsuit, which alleged damages from an IRS contractor's illegal leaking of his tax returns, pitted Trump against an agency he oversees, represented by Justice Department lawyers who also answer to him.

The "settlement" that the president reached with himself, which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on May 18, included $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for purported victims of the Biden administration's "lawfare and weaponization." It also included protection from liability for tax violations and any other federal offenses that Trump or his family might have committed. That sweet deal was business as usual at the Justice Department, Trump's personal lawyers improbably claim in a brief they filed on Monday in the Southern District of Florida.

There is "no evidence" of "collusion or fraud" in Trump v. IRS, Alejandro Brito and two other lawyers told U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who last month ordered briefing on that issue. Any suggestion that Trump used a phony lawsuit as a pretext to obtain huge favors for himself, his relatives, and his supporters is based on "nothing but speculation," Trump's attorneys say.

Brito et al. glide over the glaring conflicts of interest created by a case in which both sides were represented by lawyers who worked for Trump. Further compromising the Justice Department's ability to defend the IRS, an executive order that Trump issued in February 2025 bars the government's lawyers from taking legal positions at odds with the president's.

That bizarre situation prompted Williams to question whether the case involved a genuine controversy between adverse parties, as required for the lawsuit to proceed. After Williams ordered briefing on that crucial issue by May 20, Trump avoided the need to address it by dropping his lawsuit two days before the deadline. But in response to a May 27 motion by 35 former federal judges, Williams is now mulling "whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the 'victim of a fraud.'"

Those former judges did not have standing to file their motion, Brito et al. argue, and Williams has no authority to reopen the case. Even if she did, they say, the most she could do after determining that........

© Reason.com