President Donald Trump did something so brazen, so shameless, so stunning this week that it will stand out in history even in a presidential term drowning in self-dealing. This latest act deploys Trump’s favorite financial weapon — the bogus lawsuit — but in a way no one even contemplated before.
Trump is demanding $10 billion in taxpayer money, paid directly to him and his sons, because a few years ago, the public got a look at the tax returns he should have let us see in the first place.
What’s outrageous is that Trump will probably get it.
Trump is also seeking millions in “compensation” for the investigations into his misconduct in his first term.
This is not his first such lawsuit; Trump is also seeking millions in “compensation” for the investigations into his misconduct in his first term, about which he said that because he’s president, “I’m paying myself.” But this new suit is on a different scale.
This story begins in 2020, when a federal contractor working with the Internal Revenue Service leaked Trump’s tax returns to The New York Times. Among the revelations was that Trump paid only $750 in federal taxes in 2020.
Making someone’s tax returns public is against the law, and the contractor was eventually sentenced to five years in prison. Now Trump is suing the government, claiming his reputation was harmed to the tune of $10 billion because the public saw where he makes his money and how much he pays in taxes. You may recall that he was the first presidential nominee in modern times to keep his tax returns secret, even though there has never been a candidate whose tax returns would have been of greater interest to the public.
Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit is absurd on its face, but it’s not meant to win in a trial. Instead, the real goal here is a settlement. And who will decide whether to settle the lawsuit, and for how much? Why, Donald Trump!
Or, more precisely, decisions about the case will be made by Trump’s lackeys: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Pam Bondi. If they want to keep their jobs, then they’ll do whatever he asks.
This suit follows the template of the ones Trump has filed against multiple media organizations, which are little more than extortion schemes. Here’s how it works: Trump finds some offense he says a news outlet has committed against him — allegedly biased coverage, an inaccurate word spoken by a news anchor, a social media company temporarily blocking his account. Then, he claims he has been terribly wounded and demands a huge payout. Though the claims are laughable and stand little, if any, chance of prevailing in court, that doesn’t matter, because the message is clear: Pay me now, or I’ll use the power of the federal government to punish you. The targets of the lawsuit, fearing for what could happen to their businesses, pony up millions of dollars in a settlement.
It has worked remarkably well: He got multimillion-dollar payouts from CBS parent Paramount ($16 million), ABC ($15 million), Meta ($25 million), YouTube ($24.5 million) and Twitter/X ($10 million), with most of the money going to a future presidential library, which will likely be little more than a personal slush fund. In the past year, he has also filed nuisance suits against The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Des Moines Register and the BBC. Those are still pending.
Before becoming a politician, Trump spent a lifetime using the courts to intimidate his enemies and enhance his wealth. Today, he is treating lawsuits as a way for him and his friends to raid the federal coffers. Jan. 6 insurrectionists are suing to get huge payouts because they were prosecuted for their crimes and will no doubt find a sympathetic ear in this administration. The family of Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer that day, sued the government and was given a multimillion-dollar settlement by the Trump administration. He is treating lawsuits as a way for him and his friends to raid the federal coffers. Throughout the past year, Trump has looked for new ways to use his office for personal gain. Forget the small-time action of his first term, such as having people who wanted favors from the government book rooms in his hotels. Today, his ambitions are much grander. Journalists are struggling to document all his self-dealing schemes — not because he is concealing them, but because they are so numerous and gargantuan. The New York Times put the total amount of Trump’s and his family’s profiteering in his first year in office at $1.4 billion; using a slightly different method, The New Yorker pegged the figure at $3.4 billion. Anyone wanting to put money in the president’s pocket has a plethora of options. Give Trump a plane, buy his meme coin, spend billions on his stablecoin, invest in his media company, buy his merch — whatever your budget, from $19.99 to a few billion, you can show him you care. But this lawsuit beats them all. He wants every American taxpayer to open up their own wallets and give him a payoff. Not because he needs it, not because he deserves it, but because he can. Because he controls the government and everyone in it, and he is bound by neither principles nor shame. A few years ago, we could still have a debate about who the most corrupt president in American history is. Consider that debate closed.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture. 
