It is hard to imagine that any previous president would have thought he could engage in such an audacious act of self-dealing.<\/p>\n
Sue the government he runs, then settle the lawsuit with himself by barring the Internal Revenue Service from auditin<\/a>g his past returns. And as part of that deal, hand over $1.8 billion of taxpayer money to his allies.<\/p>\n President Trump has used the federal government to advance his own personal interests and those of his family and allies more expansively and openly than any past occupant of the White House. Any review of history would suggest that it is not even close.<\/p>\n But as Mr. Trump, the only convicted felon ever elected president, heads deeper into his second term, he seems even less inhibited by the rules, written or unwritten, that governed his predecessors. While deeply unpopular with the general public, he has demonstrated as recently as this week that he remains the undisputed master of his own party, and therefore appears to feel that he can do as he likes without fear of Congress standing in his way.<\/p>\n His self-granted writ of immunity<\/a> from I.R.S. audits amounts to a get-out-of-audits-free card, essentially the equivalent of pardoning himself for any past offenses and forgiving any tax debt or penalties. While the status of any now-short-circuited audits is not publicly known, his action could theoretically save him from paying $100 million<\/a> or more, based on past estimates of what his liability might have been under an unfavorable I.R.S. decision.<\/p>\n The I.R.S. audit immunity for himself, along with the taxpayer payout to his supporters<\/a> \u2014 potentially including those who attacked the Capitol and beat police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to overturn an election that Mr. Trump lost \u2014 stand out in their brazenness, yet not in what they say about his underlying approach to governance in his sixth year in office.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has so blurred the lines<\/a> between his financial interests and his public office that it is hard to define where the lines lie anymore, or if they still exist. He, his family and his friends have made a fortune in the 16 months since he returned to power in ways that once would have been seen as conflicts of interest and possibly generated investigations.<\/p>\n \u201cPresidents have had corrupt, even criminal, family members,\u201d said Barbara A. Perry, a presidential scholar at the University of Virginia\u2019s Miller Center, citing, among others, Hunter Biden. \u201cBut none of them succeeded to the extent of the Trump family in the level of graft achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cThey have won the presidency twice, emasculated Congress, created a supportive high court, and reshaped the law and institutions to absolve them of any wrongdoing, while making billions of ill-gotten dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, rejected the assertion.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the same tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family and his administration for a decade,\u201d she said. \u201cPresident Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public \u2014 which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media. There are no conflicts of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n Just last week, a disclosure form indicated that Mr. Trump\u2019s investment portfolio executed more than 3,600 trades<\/a> in the first three months of this year alone, many involving companies that he has favored with access or policies. His portfolio bought stock in companies run by 15 of the 17 chief executives he brought with him to China last week. The timing of some purchases has raised questions about whether they were related to statements he made or to policies he embraced.<\/p>\n The Trump Organization, his family-owned business, said that the trades were made by outside brokerage firms, and that he, his family and his firm did not have any role in deciding what stocks to buy or sell. But unlike most modern presidents, Mr. Trump has not put his investments in a genuine blind trust, since, as the disclosure form made clear, it is no secret to him what companies he has shares in as he goes about making policy decisions.<\/p>\n His family has profited enormously off his new cryptocurrency business at the same time the president has rolled back regulation of the industry. Mr. Trump pardoned the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance<\/a>, which was involved in helping the Trump family build its crypto start-up. Jeff Bezos, whose businesses receive federal contracts and depend on U.S. Postal Service rates, approved paying an estimated $28 million to Melania Trump, the first lady, for a self-promotional film streamed on Amazon.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s sons and son-in-law are involved in multibillion-dollar business ventures in the Gulf Arab states at the same time the president is making those nations favorites of his foreign policy. An investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates made a $500 million investment<\/a> in the Trump crypto firm just days before his inauguration. The Trump administration later approved the export of advanced chips to the U.A.E. Altogether, Bloomberg has estimated that the family\u2019s crypto investments have increased its net worth by more than $1 billion<\/a>, at least on paper.<\/p>\n Polls show that most of the public has concluded that Mr. Trump is leveraging the presidency for his own benefit. A poll by YouGov<\/a> in March found that 54 percent of Americans believed the term \u201ccorrupt\u201d applied \u201ca lot\u201d to the president, up from 46 percent a year earlier.<\/p>\n Democrats lashed out after the announcement of the $1.8 billion fund for Mr. Trump\u2019s allies and the I.R.S. immunity. \u201cA stunning act of corruption,\u201d said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. \u201cA scam,\u201d wrote Representatives Richard Neal of Massachusetts and Jamie Raskin of Maryland. \u201cThis one is just eye-popping unbelievable,\u201d said Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n Updated\u00a0<\/p>\n May 20, 2026, 6:59 p.m. ET<\/p>\n Even some Republicans indicated unease with the arrangement. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, said he was \u201cnot a big fan\u201d of the taxpayer fund for Mr. Trump\u2019s supporters. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania went so far as to say that \u201cwe\u2019re going to try to kill it.\u201d<\/p>\n But the Republican congressional majorities, which eagerly pursued corruption allegations against President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his family, have until now shown little interest in scrutinizing<\/a> Mr. Trump\u2019s blending of personal and public interests. And Mr. Trump demonstrated once again on Tuesday with the defeat of Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky in a Republican primary that he still wields unrivaled power to punish those who cross him.<\/p>\n Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Trump defended his lawsuit against the I.R.S. over a contractor illegally providing his tax forms to reporters. The contractor has since been convicted by the Biden Justice Department and sentenced to prison, but Mr. Trump argued the agency itself should still be held responsible.<\/p>\n He still acted as if he had nothing to do with the eventual deal negotiated by lawyers who work for him, including the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, who was his personal defense attorney in criminal cases before the 2024 election.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess they made a settlement of some kind,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t involved in the settlement. I could have been involved. But I didn\u2019t choose to be.\u201d He did not explain why the release of his tax forms, even if the government is held liable, should preclude him from being audited for his past returns.<\/p>\n As for the $1.8 billion fund, it is to go to those people who were supposedly mistreated by the Justice Department under Mr. Biden, which could include the Jan. 6 attackers, who were already pardoned by Mr. Trump. \u201cPeople were destroyed,\u201d he said. \u201cThey went to jail. Their families were ruined. They committed suicide.\u201d He made no mention of the police officers who were assaulted or later died.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump is an unabashed tax avoider who has repeatedly come under scrutiny. The Trump Organization, wholly owned by his family, was convicted in criminal court<\/a> in 2022 of 17 counts of tax fraud, a scheme to defraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records for doling out off-the-books perks to some of its top executives. The company was given the maximum fine of $1.6 million<\/a>. His chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, pleaded guilty to 15 counts and spent several months in jail.<\/p>\n For years, Mr. Trump fought to keep his tax returns hidden from the public, unlike every other modern president who voluntarily released them. Tax documents obtained by The Times in 2020<\/a> showed that he paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, when he originally ran for president on the basis of being a billionaire businessman, and only $750 in 2017, his first year in office.<\/p>\n In 10 of the previous 15 years, Mr. Trump paid no income taxes to the federal government whatsoever, by reporting large losses. A yearlong audit battle with the I.R.S. could have cost him $100 million absent this week\u2019s arrangement, according to a Times analysis of his returns in 2020, a sum that could be significantly higher with six more years of interest.<\/p>\n Other presidents did whatever they could to avoid looking like they were skimping on taxes, trading the markets, making money off policy decisions or using taxpayer funds to reward political allies. While many modern presidents have cashed in after leaving office, none have made the kind of money that Mr. Trump and his family have during their time in the White House.<\/p>\n Even the most notorious presidential financial scandals in history \u2014 Credit Mobilier during Ulysses S. Grant\u2019s administration, Teapot Dome during Warren G. Harding\u2019s presidency and Watergate during Richard M. Nixon\u2019s tenure \u2014 did not come close to the money swirling around the Trump family during his second term.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only do the three most infamous previous presidency financial-political scandals seem minor compared to Trump\u2019s,\u201d said Ms. Perry, the presidential scholar, \u201cbut none of the three presidents \u2014 Grant, Harding, Nixon \u2014 padded their own bank accounts.\u201d People around Grant and Harding traded public policy for money, but there was no evidence that the presidents themselves profited. And the money raised by Nixon\u2019s team went to his campaign dirty tricks slush fund and hush money for the Watergate burglars, rather into the president\u2019s pocket.<\/p>\n As of Wednesday, Forbes magazine<\/a> estimated Mr. Trump\u2019s net worth at $6.1 billion, up from $5.1 billion last year and $2.3 billion in 2024.<\/p>\n