What happened
President Donald Trump Thursday sued the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department, seeking at least $10 billion for “reputational and financial harm” from leaks of his tax information between 2018 and 2020. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Miami. Charles Littlejohn, a government contractor, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024 after admitting to leaking tax information from Trump and other wealthy Americans to The New York Times and ProPublica.
Who said what
This is Trump’s third “claim for a large amount of money against the government he oversees,” The Washington Post said, once again putting him “on both sides of the potential negotiating table.” Trump previously “demanded that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million” for two “federal investigations into him, a request that had no parallel in American history,” The New York Times said.
The IRS case “promises to be unusual, controversial and full of ethical conflicts given Trump’s multiple, intertwined roles,” The Wall Street Journal said. “Although he filed the lawsuit in his personal capacity,” he “can fire the people” who would ultimately “formulate legal positions against the president and weigh possible settlement offers with him.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is also currently acting IRS commissioner, earlier this week canceled a $21 million contract with Littlejohn’s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton, citing the leak.
What next?
Since the law allows people to sue for damages “only if U.S. employees are at fault,” one “key question” in Trump’s suit “will be whether Littlejohn was an IRS employee or not,” the Journal said. “Another question will be whether the lawsuit is too late,” given the two-year window to sue. The “likely outcome,” the Post said, is a “settlement with a Justice Department that Trump has publicly said works for him.”
The president is claiming ‘reputational and financial harm’ from leaks of his tax information between 2018 and 2020