Trump moves to withdraw $10 billion lawsuit against IRS amid reports of new ‘slush fund’

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In recent weeks, there’s been ample reporting from multiple news organizations that Donald Trump was preparing to withdraw his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. We now know those reports were true.

In a court filing made official on Monday morning, the president’s lawyers said their clients, including Trump, his family business, and two of his adult sons, are voluntarily dismissing their civil suit.

The court filing, however, did not reference or disclose any details about a possible agreement with the administration that made the withdrawal possible.

The underlying case stems from an incident that occurred during Trump’s first term, when a former IRS contractor named Charles Littlejohn gained access to the president’s tax returns and shared the documents the Republican had been desperate to hide. Littlejohn was caught, charged, convicted and sent to prison.

Earlier this year, however, Trump decided the criminal penalty wasn’t enough. Indeed, the Republican filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the federal tax agency in February, setting up an unprecedented situation in which a president sought a massive payout from the same executive branch he leads.

Shortly after the president filed the radical (and by any fair measure, frivolous) lawsuit, he told reporters that he assumed “nobody would care” if he received a giant check from the government because he and his team were “thinking about doing something for charity.”