In a federal court filing Friday, Trump asks a judge to pause the case for 90 days while the two sides work to reach a settlement or resolution.
“This limited pause will neither prejudice the parties nor delay ultimate resolution,” the filing says. “Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.”
Tax and ethics experts say the lawsuit raises a plethora of legal and ethical questions, including the propriety of the leader of the executive branch pursuing scorched-earth litigation against the very government he oversees.
Earlier this year, Trump filed a lawsuit in a Florida federal court, alleging that a previous leak of his and the Trump Organization’s confidential tax records caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”
The president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, are also plaintiffs in the suit.
When asked in February how he would handle any potential damages from the case, Trump said, “I think what we’ll do is do something for charity.”
“We could make it a substantial amount,” he said at the time. “Nobody would care because it’s going to go to numerous very good charities.”
Several ethics watchdog groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs challenging the president’s lawsuit.
The watchdog group Democracy Forward’s February filing states that the case is “extraordinary because the President controls both sides of the litigation, which raises the prospect of collusive litigation tactics,” and “the conflicts of interest make it uncertain whether the Department of Justice will zealously defend the public fisc in the same way that it has against other plaintiffs claiming damages for related events.”
