WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s legal representatives have requested a federal judge grant a 90-day suspension of his $10 billion legal action against the Internal Revenue Service while both parties attempt to negotiate a settlement.
The lawsuit centers on allegations that the IRS improperly disclosed the president’s confidential tax information to media organizations during a two-year period from 2018 to 2020.
According to court documents submitted Friday, Trump’s attorneys are seeking the temporary halt to facilitate productive discussions between the parties.
“This limited pause will neither prejudice the parties nor delay ultimate resolution,” the court filing states. “Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.”
Legal and ethics specialists have raised numerous concerns about the case, questioning whether it’s appropriate for the head of the executive branch to pursue aggressive litigation against a federal agency under his administration’s control.
The president initiated the legal action in a Florida federal courthouse earlier this year, claiming the unauthorized disclosure of his personal and Trump Organization tax documents resulted in “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.”
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the president’s sons, are also named as plaintiffs in the litigation.
The case traces back to Charles Edward Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor from Washington, D.C., who received a five-year prison sentence in 2024 after admitting guilt for disclosing tax information about Trump and other individuals to two media outlets.
While the news organizations weren’t identified in criminal charging documents, the timeline and details correspond with New York Times coverage of Trump’s tax returns and ProPublica’s reporting on wealthy Americans’ tax obligations. The Times investigation revealed Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes during his first year as president and paid no income taxes in certain years due to massive reported losses.
When questioned in February about his plans for any potential monetary awards from the lawsuit, Trump indicated charitable intentions.
“I think what we’ll do is do something for charity,” he stated.
“We could make it a substantial amount,” he said at the time. “Nobody would care because it’s going to go to numerous very good charities.”
Multiple ethics oversight organizations have submitted friend-of-the-court briefs opposing the president’s legal action.
Democracy Forward, a watchdog organization, argued in their February submission that the situation is “extraordinary because the President controls both sides of the litigation, which raises the prospect of collusive litigation tactics,” and “the conflicts of interest make it uncertain whether the Department of Justice will zealously defend the public fisc in the same way that it has against other plaintiffs claiming damages for related events.”
