President Donald Trump and several of his family members sued the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion, alleging the government agencies failed to prevent his tax returns from being leaked.
The lawsuit, filed at a federal courthouse in Florida on Thursday, said Trump is bringing the suit in “his personal capacity.” The other plaintiffs include the Republican president’s eldest sons — Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump — as well as the Trump organization.
The civil complaint argues that the IRS and Treasury Department fell short on their obligation to stop the leak of the president’s tax records by Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor, in 2019 and 2020.
Littlejohn pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking the president’s tax records to The New York Times, and he was sentenced to five years in prison the following year. In 2020, the newspaper published a report showing the billionaire president paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 — and no federal income taxes for most of the prior 15 years.
“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 complaint said.
Spokespeople for the Treasury Department and the IRS did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Independent.
This is a developing story…
