Today in the John Roberts presidency
By 
Trump is seeking permanent exemption from audits for himself and his family as part of a settlement of his sub-frivolous collusive lawsuit against the IRS:
The Justice Department is holding internal discussions about settling President Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in the coming days, according to three people familiar with the deliberations, a move that could involve the government directly providing taxpayer funds or another public benefit to the president.
Whether to settle the suit and on what terms remains up in the air. One of the settlement options the Justice Department and White House officials are reviewing is the possibility of the I.R.S. dropping any audits of Mr. Trump, his family members or businesses, according to two of the people.
[….]
Given that Mr. Trump oversees the I.R.S., the agency that he is suing, the judge in the case has taken a series of novel legal steps to probe whether there is a genuine controversy between the Justice Department and Mr. Trump. For a lawsuit to be valid, the two parties must actually be on opposite sides, otherwise the judge can throw out the case. The judge has ordered Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers — along with the Justice Department, which represents the I.R.S. in federal court — to submit briefs by May 20 explaining whether they are in conflict with one another.
White House and Justice Department officials have in recent days been exploring ways to potentially settle the suit before that deadline, according to the people.
Settling the suit to preempt a judge throwing the case out for the lack of a controversy (which is obviously true) would be the most corrupt act in the history of the American presidency by a margin that’s hard to fathom, and I wish I thought it would get as much coverage as Hunter Biden’s art sales.
This is much less important, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that if Clinton or Biden had done something like this even once if would have been an administration-defining scandal:
You'll be shocked to learn the reporter Trump called a "dumb person" is a black woman (Akayla Gardner of MSNOW) thegrio.com/2026/05/12/t…
[image or embed]— Eric Columbus (@ericcolumbus.bsky.social) 5:35 PM · May 12, 2026