U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Few actions on the part of the Trump administration have drawn as much bipartisan scorn as the DOJ-IRS settlement that aims to create a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, which critics say amounts to a “slush fund” for January 6 rioters. Now a legal expert has laid bare the “shameful spin” underlying the supposed justification of the fund.
At the core of the administration’s case is the assertion that the IRS leaked President Donald Trump’s tax returns during his first term, allegedly with the intention of smearing his reputation. As Southern District of New York US Attorney Jay Claton framed it on Thursday, the IRS “intentionally” released Trump’s returns to “embarrass” him while he was a “private citizen”— "they leaked his tax returns, they tried to destroy him.”
But as MSNOW legal analyst and former Southern District of New York Division Deputy Chief Kristy Greenberg pointed out, absolutely none of that was true.
‘'They' didn’t leak Trump’s tax returns,” Greenberg posted to X. “An IRS contractor did — along with thousands of other tax returns — during Trump’s first term. [Former President Joe] Biden’s DOJ prosecuted the contractor, who got the max: 5 years in prison. This is shameful spin from SDNY U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.”
As Greenberg suggested, Clayton and many other Trump allies are either misrepresenting the facts or outright lying. Trump wasn’t a “private citizen” when the leak occurred, but the president of the country. The IRS had nothing to do with the leak, and therefore the assertion that the agency was attempting to “embarrass” Trump is nonsensical. Trump wasn’t “intentionally” targeted by the actual leaker even, who released thousands of tax returns at the same time. What’s more, the leaker was already punished by the Biden administration. Justice has been served for what crime was committed.
Greenberg isn’t alone in recognizing the contradictions and incoherence of the Trump administration’s case. Speaking to PBS, former IRS commissioner John Koskinen explained, “Normally, what you would do in the Justice Department and prior cases had maintained was the suit should be against, if you have a claim, for damages against… the contractor who stole the information. The Justice Department, up until this settlement, had taken the position that the IRS was not an appropriate defendant.”
What’s more, Koskinen noted another unusual aspect of the story: language in the settlement that bars the IRS from investigating the past and future taxes of Trump, his family, or organization “forever.” According to Koskinen, he has “never heard” of such a settlement deal.
“You do have to wonder what's in those returns that makes it so important for them not to be audited,” he noted.