President Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on Thursday, seeking at least $10 billion in damages over an agency contractor who leaked his tax return information to news outlets.
Charles Littlejohn, the contractor, is currently serving a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to a felony.
Trump’s civil lawsuit now seeks an 11-figure payout on taxpayers’ dime, pointing to a federal law that enables Americans to seek damages from the federal government for breaches of their sensitive taxpayer information.
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.
“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 lawsuit states.
NewsNation partner The Hill has reached out to an IRS spokesperson for comment.
The lawsuit landed 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.
