In brief
In a significant legal move, Donald Trump and his sons have filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and the US Treasury for leaking sensitive tax information to media outlets. They accuse the federal agencies of breaching their duty to protect confidential financial data, leading to reputational harm and public embarrassment after a contractor was found guilty of pervasive leaks. This lawsuit comes amid ongoing scrutiny over Trump's tax practices and disclosures.
US President Donald Trump and his two sons have filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against the federal government over leaks of their business and personal tax returns. The civil complaint, filed in Miami federal court, seeks $10bn (£7.25bn) in damages.
The Trump family accuses the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) - the US-wide tax body - and the Treasury Department of failing to prevent the disclosure of confidential, personal financial information by a former IRS contractor.
The contractor, Charles Chaz Littlejohn, is serving a five-year prison sentence after being convicted of leaking the tax disclosures to US media outlets.
Ahead of the 2016 election, Trump said he would not release his tax returns because he was under audit, making him the first in almost 50 years to not disclose the documents. He reiterated this stance before his 2020 re-election run.
However, in September 2020, just before the November election, The New York Times published an extensive report on Trump's tax returns, revealing he paid only $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and no taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.
In 2022, Trump released the documents himself. The lawsuit states that both the IRS and Treasury Department had a duty to safeguard and protect such disclosures from being shared publicly but failed to take such mandatory precautions.
Trump, along with Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization assert that they suffered reputational and financial harm due to the leaks that portrayed them unfairly and negatively affected their public standing.
Littlejohn pleaded guilty in 2023 to stealing tax data while working as a contractor for the IRS and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024. The lawsuit contends that he weaponized his access to taxpayer data to score personal and political points, believing that the disclosure was justified due to Trump's political standing.
