President Donald Trump is suing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department for $10 billion, accusing the agencies of failing to protect sensitive records. The move comes after an IRS contractor leaked tax returns belonging to Trump and his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, to news organizations in 2020.
Both of Trump’s sons and the Trump Organization are named as plaintiffs in the suit filed in a Florida federal court on Thursday.
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Tax information leak
Trump, who broke with modern presidential precedent, repeatedly refused to release his tax returns during his campaigns and time in office despite sustained political pressure.
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Trump previously demanded the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for federal investigations into him.
The suit claims the leak 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.”
After the leak, the New York Times reported that Trump paid just $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017. That’s also how much he paid in 2021, his first year in office, according to CBS News.
ProPublica later published a series about discrepancies in Trump’s tax records based on the same cache of information.
Source of leak
In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn, who worked for defense and national security tech firm Booz Allen Hamilton, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking Trump’s tax information to news outlets.
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Prosecutors in the new case argue Littlejohn abused his access to confidential taxpayer data to advance his own political agenda.
Just days ago, the Treasury Department canceled all contracts with the firm Littlejohn worked for.
