President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), alleging that the agency failed to protect his confidential tax records, causing reputational and financial damage to his business.
Gatekeepers News reports that the lawsuit was filed on Thursday in a Miami federal court by Trump in his personal capacity, alongside his two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., and their family business, The Trump Organization.
According to the suit, the IRS and the US Treasury Department “had a duty to safeguard and protect Plaintiffs’ confidential tax returns,” but failed to do so.
Trump’s tax records had long been the subject of public scrutiny during his first term, after he broke with tradition by refusing to release them as a presidential candidate.
The documents were leaked to the media by Charles “Chaz” Littlejohn, a former IRS employee who worked at the agency between May 2019 and September 2020, the lawsuit said.
“Defendants have caused Plaintiffs’ 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,” the filing stated.
Littlejohn pleaded guilty in 2023 to disclosing Trump’s tax returns and is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.
In September 2020, The New York Times reported that Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax in both 2016 and 2017, and none at all for 10 of the previous 15 years.
This is not the first time Trump has sued the federal government. The New York Times previously reported that he sought $230 million from the US Department of Justice over investigations into his handling of classified documents and attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
