Judge Asks Justice Department: Will You Oppose Trump?

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News Analysis

Judge Asks Justice Department: Will You Oppose Trump?

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to explain whether it intends to contest President Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. over the disclosure of his tax returns.

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President Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns to news media outlets, arguing that the agency should have done more to prevent the disclosures.

Credit...

Kenny Holston/The New York Times

By

Andrew Duehren

Reporting from Washington

April 29, 2026,

5:04 a.m. ET

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President Trump has made no secret of his desire for total control over the historically independent Justice Department, publicly

directing prosecutions

and declaring that government lawyers

must follow

his interpretation of the law.

It is a norm-busting approach that has resulted in criminal investigations into several of his perceived political enemies. But his extraordinary influence over the department is now a potential obstacle to one of Mr. Trump’s other apparent goals: receiving a $10 billion payout from the government he leads.

In January,

Mr. Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service

over the leak of his tax returns to The New York Times in 2019, arguing that the agency should have done more to prevent the disclosures. Mr. Trump, as well as his family business and two of his sons, demanded at least $10 billion in damages.

Officials at the Justice Department, which represent the I.R.S. in federal court,

have struggled

with how and whether they could defend the case, given that doing so would necessitate that they contradict the president on a legal question. A government attorney has yet to make an appearance in the case, and lawyers for Mr. Trump, not the Justice Department,

asked to give the government more time

to respond to the suit.

That has left the federal judge overseeing the case, Kathleen Williams, an appointee of President Barack Obama in the Southern District of Florida, wondering whether the Justice Department even disagrees with Mr. Trump’s claims in the suit.

“Although President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction,” the judge wrote in an order on Friday. “Accordingly, it is unclear to this court whether the parties are sufficiently adverse to each other.”

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