President Donald Trump on Monday moved to dismiss his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his confidential tax returns, as the Justice Department reportedly weighs the creation of a $1.7 billion compensation fund for alleged victims of government “weaponization.”
The voluntary dismissal, filed in federal court in Miami by Trump attorney Alejandro Brito, offered little explanation for why the president chose to abandon the high-profile case just days before a scheduled hearing on whether the lawsuit should be thrown out altogether.
Recommended Stories
“The dismissal requires neither leave of court nor the consent of any party,” Brito wrote in the filing to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, writing that no judicial input was needed to dismiss the case.
The move comes as multiple reports in recent days have indicated that the administration is seeking to establish a roughly $1.7 billion federal fund to compensate individuals who say the federal government politically targeted them during the Biden administration. Trump himself would reportedly not receive money under the arrangement, according to ABC News, which first reported on the fund plans.
Those who may be eligible beneficiaries from the fund include some of the roughly 1,500 people prosecuted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and others who may have had their livelihoods upended over politically charged prosecutions during former President Joe Biden’s term.
Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization filed the lawsuit earlier this year against the IRS and Treasury Department, arguing the government failed to safeguard their tax records from unauthorized disclosure.
The case stemmed from the actions of former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking the tax information of Trump and thousands of wealthy Americans, including billionaires such as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, to media organizations, including the New York Times and ProPublica. Prosecutors said Littlejohn was motivated by politics. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
TRUMP ‘IN DISCUSSIONS’ WITH IRS TO CUT DEAL IN TAX RECORD LAWSUIT
Trump’s litigation raised concerns among some of his critics due to conflicts of interest that could arise from suing the government while president. Last month, Williams openly questioned whether the parties in the dispute were “truly antagonistic to each other,” given Trump’s authority over both the IRS and the Justice Department.
Williams had scheduled a May 27 hearing to consider whether the case should be dismissed on those grounds before Trump moved to withdraw the suit on Monday.
