U.S. President Donald Trump has sued the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department for $10 billion over the disclosure of his tax returns to the media in 2019 and 2020.
US president Trump
The president sued alongside his two oldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization. The complaint names the IRS and the Treasury Department as defendants.
In a complaint filed in Miami federal court, Trump, his adult sons, and his namesake company said the agencies failed to take “mandatory precautions” to prevent former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn from leaking their tax returns to “leftist media outlets”, including the New York Times and ProPublica.
The plaintiffs said they suffered “significant and irreparable harm” to their reputations and financial interests, and may seek punitive damages because the leaks were either willful or resulted from gross negligence.
The lawsuit comes days after the Treasury Department announced it was canceling contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, a major government contractor that employed Littlejohn when he was doing work for the IRS.
His criminal prosecutors have said Littlejohn sought the role with the intention of accessing and disclosing tax returns. His leaks ultimately led to stories in publications including The New York Times and ProPublica about President Trump’s finances.
Though federal law explicitly allows individuals to file lawsuits for such breaches, it only allows them to be brought within a two-year window.
The New York Times began releasing stories sourced from Littlejohn’s leaks as early as 2020. But the Trumps say they didn’t learn that someone at the IRS disclosed it until receiving formal notice from the Treasury Department much later.
“Plaintiffs had no reason to believe that an unauthorized disclosure had occurred for at least two reasons,” the lawsuit states. “First, the New York Times reporting did not state that the information came from the IRS, and second, the IRS Commissioner supposedly investigated and found that the disclosure did not come from the IRS.”
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Southern District of Florida. The president is represented by his personal lawyers, led by attorney Alex Britto, who are now set to face off against Trump’s own Justice Department.
