This is so bizarre and inappropriate that no other president would have even considered it. But it’s just another Trump atrocity hardly worth mentioning:
The Justice Department is struggling to decide how to respond to President Trump’s lawsuit demanding at least $10 billion from the I.R.S., as the department’s lawyers try to resolve by a mid-April deadline the profound ethical questions the case raises, according to two people familiar with the dynamic.
In late January, Mr. Trump took the extraordinary step of suing a federal agency that he oversees, accusing the I.R.S. of not doing enough to prevent the leak of his tax returns to The New York Times in 2020. The suit immediately elicited questions about whether and how Trump administration officials would defend against a lawsuit filed by the head of the executive branch. The government has not yet responded to the case.
[…]
While former Justice Department officials see clear flaws in the president’s case, some Trump administration officials worry that assigning a lawyer to contest it would pose an unworkable conflict, given that such a person ultimately works for the president, according to the two people. Defending the case could also contradict a White House executive order that binds all government lawyers to the president’s interpretation of the law.
Another option under consideration is to try to delay the case, either by requesting more time to respond to the suit or by asking the judge to put it on hold until after Mr. Trump leaves office in 2029. Mr. Trump’s lawyers served the government with the suit on Feb. 18, giving the Justice Department 60 days to respond.
The Justice Department could also ask the judge in the Southern District of Florida presiding over the case, Kathleen M. Williams, an Obama nominee, to take other action to resolve the conflict of interest faced by the government’s attorneys, the people said. The judge could appoint an independent counsel to defend the case instead of the Justice Department, for example.
Settling the case would involve some of the president’s top aides, including one of his own former defense lawyers, approving a potentially gigantic disbursement of taxpayer dollars to Mr. Trump and his family, a possibility that is likely to provoke political blowback. Regardless, Trump administration officials expect that they will ultimately have to consult Mr. Trump himself on how the government should respond to his lawsuit, the people said.
Political blowback? Maybe. But It’s just as likely his cult will say he deserves it and we’ll all wring our hands about polarization and that will be that.
He says he will give he money to charity as if that somehow makes it ok to abuse his power to steal money from the taxpayers so he can make a point. And we can only imagine what “charity” he plans to give the money to. The ballroom? The Trump Presidential Library/hotel?