U.S. President Donald Trump, alongside his sons and company, has filed a massive $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department. The legal action alleges the agencies failed to prevent the illegal disclosure of their confidential tax returns to major media outlets.
The complaint, filed in Miami federal court, names President Trump, his adult sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization as plaintiffs. They accuse the agencies of failing to take “mandatory precautions” that allowed former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn to leak their tax information to what the lawsuit describes as “leftist media outlets,” including The New York Times and ProPublica.
The plaintiffs argue they suffered “significant and irreparable harm” to their reputations and financial interests due to the leaks, which occurred in 2019 and 2020. The lawsuit states they may seek punitive damages, claiming the disclosures resulted from either willful action or gross negligence by the agencies.
This lawsuit follows closely on the heels of the Treasury Department's announcement that it was canceling contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, the major government contractor that employed Littlejohn during his IRS work. Federal prosecutors have stated Littlejohn sought the contractor role specifically to access and disclose tax returns.
A key legal hurdle noted in the filing is the two-year statute of limitations for such lawsuits. The Trumps contend they were unaware the leak originated from the IRS until much later, as “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.”
President Trump is represented by his personal lawyers, led by attorney Alex Britto, setting up a legal confrontation with the Justice Department, which is part of his own administration.
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