U.S. President Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. walk toward the White House, May 3.MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
It was a lawsuit without precedent: This past January, U.S. President Donald Trump demanded US$10-billion from his own government as compensation for an Internal Revenue Service contractor leaking his tax returns.
Earlier this month, the action reached an equally unprecedented out-of-court settlement: The Department of Justice will create a nearly US$1.8-billion “anti-weaponization fund” to pay compensation to people the Trump administration believes have been unfairly prosecuted – widely suspected to be a way to funnel money to Jan. 6 rioters.
A one-page addendum to the agreement signed by Todd Blanche, a former lawyer for Mr. Trump now running the DOJ, stipulates that the IRS is also “FOREVER BARRED” from pursuing current or future tax claims or prosecutions against Mr. Trump, his family or his company.
The whole episode is only the latest to prompt accusations that Mr. Trump and his family are enriching themselves from the presidency.
The President has promoted his family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, while in office, and he and his government have made favourable decisions for people and entities that have pumped money into the company.
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump pose for pictures outside the Nasdaq building after ringing the opening bell to celebrate the closing of ALT5’s $1.5-billion offering and adoption of its $WLFI Treasury Strategy at the Nasdaq Market, Aug. 13, 2025.Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Mr. Trump’s stock portfolio, meanwhile, made 3,600 trades last quarter, including stakes in technology companies and military contractors directly affected by presidential decisions.
The IRS settlement, however, appears to have triggered a rare revolt from Mr. Trump’s usually loyal Republican caucus in the Senate. Several GOP members openly criticized the deal and failed to pass a piece of the President’s priority legislation that would pour more money into his signature mass-deportation policy.
Here is what to know about the ethical questions surrounding the man who once promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington.
The IRS suit and the settlement
Since his first presidential run in 2016, Mr. Trump has refused to release his tax returns, breaking with a tradition among candidates dating to the 1970s. In 2019, IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn leaked Mr. Trump’s returns to The New York Times, for which he is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.
The documents revealed that the President’s businesses lost large amounts of money − losses that he used to avoid paying federal income tax in at least 11 years.
Mr. Trump sued the IRS, demanding US$10-billion in compensation. Mr. Blanche, the acting attorney-general, announced a settlement with his boss last week.
The first part of the deal entails the US$1.776-billion fund – a reference to the year the U.S. was founded – to compensate people who “suffered weaponization and lawfare” from the legal system.
In the first quarter of 2026, Mr. Trump’s stock portfolio undertook about US$100-million in trades, including shares of chip maker Nvidia, and military contractors such as Lockheed Martin as he pursued a war in Iran.Robert Nemeti/Getty Images
At a Senate committee hearing, Mr. Blanche confirmed that people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including members of far-right militias, would be welcome to file claims to the money.
“Whether an individual, an Oath Keeper as you just mentioned, applies for compensation,” he said, “anybody in this country can apply.”
One day later, the DOJ released its sweeping indemnification of Mr. Trump, his family and companies from tax investigations.
Public office and private business
Since returning to the White House last year, Mr. Trump has maintained interests in businesses whose fortunes could be directly affected by his decisions.
World Liberty Financial has made the Trump family about US$1-billion, according to estimates by Forbes and The New York Times, and received money from people who subsequently benefited from Trump administration decisions.
A government company from Abu Dhabi, for instance, took a secret 49-per-cent stake in the company, The Wall Street Journal reported, months before the White House cut a deal to supply U.S. semiconductors to the United Arab Emirates. Hong Kong crypto mogul Justin Sun, meanwhile, poured US$75-million into the firm before having a U.S. federal securities case against him frozen.
In the first quarter of 2026, Mr. Trump’s stock portfolio undertook about US$100-million in trades, including shares of chip maker Nvidia, which got the President’s approval to sell artificial intelligence semiconductors to China last year, and military contractors such as Lockheed Martin as he pursued a war in Iran.
Mr. Trump has also used social media posts and speeches to promote companies in which he bought stocks, such as defence contractor Palantir and computer maker Dell.
The IRS deal is a 'misuse and abuse of Trump’s powers as president to circumvent the laws of taxation that should apply to all Americans,' Barbara Perry, a presidential scholar at the University of Virginia, says.Kent Nishimura/Reuters
Richard Painter, who served as the White House’s chief ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007, had to reach back to the first half of the 19th century, when several U.S. presidents owned slaves, to find examples of chief executives whose business interests conflicted with their official duties.
“We have not had a president with this degree of conflicts of interest since the Civil War,” Mr. Painter told The Globe and Mail. “It’s just a free-for-all.”
Vice-President JD Vance argued last week that none of this is a problem because Mr. Trump had delegated the management of his money to other people. “The President doesn’t sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his, like, Robinhood account, buying and selling stocks,” he said.
The legalities
There is a conflict-of-interest law prohibiting U.S. executive branch employees from taking part in official duties that would affect their finances or those of their business associates. The president and vice-president, however, are exempt.
Even so, previous chief executives have usually self-imposed an ethics regimen. Bill Clinton put his assets into a blind trust so he wouldn’t know what companies he had invested in when making policy decisions. George W. Bush sold off his stocks. Barack Obama and Joe Biden didn’t buy and sell individual stocks.
Barbara Perry, a presidential scholar at the University of Virginia, said the ethics safeguard was simply presidents’ desire not to appear to be profiteering off the public trust.
“Presidents want people to see them as one of them − and they don’t want to be involved in scandal,” she said in an interview. The IRS deal is a “misuse and abuse of Trump’s powers as president to circumvent the laws of taxation that should apply to all Americans.”
Mr. Trump departs Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Tuesday. 'We have not had a president with this degree of conflicts of interest since the Civil War,' says Richard Painter, who served as the White House’s chief ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007.Alex Brandon/The Associated Press
Some critics have accused Mr. Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which bars presidents and other federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments.
It is unclear how such a clause would be enforced in Mr. Trump’s case. Mr. Blanche’s DOJ seems unlikely to investigate him.
Also working in Mr. Trump’s favour is a Supreme Court ruling in a case he brought two years ago, Trump v. the United States, which held that presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution for official acts taken in office.
The Republican backlash and what happens next
The IRS deal landed as Mr. Trump’s popularity is at its nadir, amid the Iran war and persistently high consumer prices. It also came the same week that Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidate won in a primary, defeating Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted in 2021 to convict Mr. Trump over the Jan. 6 riot.
The days after the settlement was announced saw a rare wave of GOP criticism of the President.
“People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries and paying for gas, not about putting together a US$1.8-billion fund for the President and his allies to pay whomever they wish,” Mr. Cassidy wrote on X.
Amid the uproar, Republican Senate Leader John Thune abruptly adjourned the body for more than a week when it became clear that a bill to pump US$72-billion more into U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not have enough votes to pass.
Longer-term, Mr. Painter said, a future president could roll back the IRS deal and extend federal ethics legislation. There’s also the possibility that the next administration simply imitates this one.
“We could have another president who sees that Trump got away with it and wants to do the same thing: build up the family business and have other side operations going on,” he said. “We’ve got to get serious about ethics because this is just getting worse and worse.”