Donald Trump is currently in Beijing meeting with Xi Jinping. Back in Washington, however, his Justice Department is weighing whether to settle a $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS, creating the unusual situation of a president effectively overseeing a case against his own government.
One federal judge summed up the arrangement with unusual honesty, noting that Trump had “admitted that I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself.”
Miles Taylor, who served inside Trump’s first administration as Homeland Security chief of staff, appeared Wednesday on All In with Chris Hayes to discuss the lawsuit and what he sees as the broader implications around it.
Host Chris Hayes framed the issue this way: “It’s clear there’s no one telling him ‘no’ inside. And if there were ever a clearer example of that, to me, it is this — there is no one saying you cannot give yourself $10 billion from the US Treasury.”
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Taylor took the conversation somewhere much darker. “He should not spend the presidency lining his pockets. He should be preparing to line his prison cell,” he said.
And he was not speaking metaphorically, at least according to him.
“I don’t mean that hyperbolically. He is guaranteeing, by doing things like this, that he’ll spend the rest of his days after this administration in courtrooms, in depositions, and potentially incarcerated. This is a corrupt act. This is a high crime and misdemeanor.”
He also aimed a warning at current officials still working under Trump. “Anyone who is enabling it, I would tell them right now — because I’ve been in your shoes inside his administration when he asked me to do illegal things. Don’t bet that this man’s going to pardon you.”
The numbers involved are massive even by Washington standards. The proposed $10 billion settlement would equal roughly two-thirds of the IRS’s annual budget and around one thousand times larger than the biggest payout ever made under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Trump filed the lawsuit in January alongside Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., arguing that the 2020 leak of his tax returns caused reputational and financial damage. The case is now being handled by a Justice Department led by Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney.
That overlap has become central to the criticism surrounding the case. The judge overseeing it has already pointed out that there is effectively no genuine opposing side because Trump controls the administration defending against the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also arrives alongside a growing list of financial wins connected to the Trump orbit. Vietnam approved a $1.5 billion Trump Organization golf course project after tariff tensions escalated. Mar-a-Lago raised its membership fee to $1 million. Amazon reportedly paid Melania Trump $28 million for a documentary project. ABC donated $15 million toward Trump’s future presidential library, while Paramount agreed to pay $16 million tied to a dispute involving 60 Minutes.
Reports estimate the Trump family’s net worth has increased by roughly $4 billion since January 2025, pushing it close to $6.2 billion.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
