What did Donald Trump do today?

He got handed a legal setback in his attempt to pay himself $10 billion in taxpayer money.

Trump, a billionaire heir who routinely praises himself for not taking his $0.0004 billion salary as president, is suing the IRS for $10 billion on the grounds that it was negligent in allowing some of his tax returns to be released. The supposed "negligence" occurred during Trump's first term in office while he himself was responsible for it.

But the IRS—which is under Trump's direct control and is led by Trump appointees—has recently been signaling that it will settle the matter out of court with Trump. An actual trial that the IRS was trying to win, as it would against literally any other plaintiff besides Trump, would probably last longer than Trump's tenure as president, at which point a new administration would almost certainly start fighting back in court. A quick settlement, on the other hand, would net Trump some or all of the $10 billion at issue immediately, while he could still write the check with one hand and cash it with the other.

That may explain why Trump's legal team notified the district court handling the "lawsuit" about a potential settlement before the IRS legal team had even had a chance to formally acknowledge the suit—a pretty obvious tell that would never happen when the parties weren't colluding with one another. 

The obvious irregularity was noted today by Judge Kathleen Williams, who ordered Trump and the IRS to explain why there was any controversy between Trump the plaintiff looking to profit from the government taking orders from Trump the defendant. She noted in her order that Trump has signed executive orders requiring the Department of Justice (which would represent the IRS in this case) to follow his direct instructions.

President Trump has issued multiple executive orders which shape the relationship of the agencies of the executive branch to his presidency. For example, “[n]o employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law … that contravenes the President[’s] . . . opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to … positions advanced in litigation[.]” 

One such employee of the executive branch, the Attorney General, has a statutory obligation to defend the IRS when it is hailed into court, but then is ostensibly required by executive mandate to adhere to the President’s opinion on a matter of law in such a case. 

The result, Judge Williams wrote, is that it's not clear "whether the Parties here are truly antagonistic to each other." Precisely to avoid sham settlements like this, courts do not consider cases where there is no actual dispute.

Williams' order does not end Trump's chances at "winning" $10 billion from taxpayers for having evidence of his obvious and already well-documented tax crimes released to the news media, but it will slow it down, and draw attention that Trump clearly doesn't want.  

Why does this matter?

• Corruption doesn't get much more obvious than a president demanding $10 billion directly from the government branch he leads. 
  
  
• That $10 billion will come from the pockets of Americans who don't cheat on their taxes.