President Trump moved Monday to withdraw his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his confidential tax returns, a court filing in Florida federal court confirmed. The dismissal comes days after ABC News reported that the Trump administration was preparing to establish a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who believe they were wrongly investigated or prosecuted during the Biden years.
Trump filed the suit earlier this year in Florida, alleging that the leak of his and the Trump Organization’s confidential tax records caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.” His sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, were named co-plaintiffs.
The court filing made Monday did not specify the terms of any settlement or deal.
Democrats reacted sharply. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called the proposed fund unconstitutional. “This, of course, is a political grievance fund that Donald Trump can use to pay off his friends,” Raskin told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “If these people have a valid cause of action, they should bring it to the court like every other American does, and use the system of due process.”
Raskin added: “The idea that Donald Trump can just pass it out like a pardon is absurd.”
It remains unclear precisely who would be eligible for payments from the fund. The Trump administration has framed its broader retribution campaign as a correction to what it calls the Biden Justice Department’s deliberate weaponization of federal law enforcement against political opponents. Trump has pointed to his own dismissed criminal charges, including the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election case and the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, as evidence of that pattern.
Several of Trump’s former aides and hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants were also prosecuted under the prior administration.
Former Attorney General Merrick Garland has repeatedly denied allegations of politicization, maintaining that his department followed facts, evidence, and the law. Garland’s DOJ also investigated President Biden over his handling of classified materials and brought separate prosecutions against Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges.
