President Donald Trump is suing the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department for $10 billion, alleging that they failed to take necessary steps to prevent a former IRS employee from improperly disclosing his tax returns, and those of his sons and his company, to news outlets.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday at a federal courthouse in Miami, says Trump is suing in his personal capacity, not as president. The other plaintiffs include two of Trump’s sons — Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump — and the Trump Organization.
“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.
The Treasury and IRS did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday night.
A former IRS contractor, Charles Littlejohn, was sentenced to 5 years in prison in 2024 after he pleaded guilty the year before to leaking Trump’s tax records to The New York Times. The Times in 2020 published exclusive reporting that showed Trump had paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.
Trump at the time called the Times’ story “totally fake news” and “made up.” He added that the information had been “illegally obtained.”
Littlejohn admitted in federal court that he also stole tax records belonging to thousands of other wealthy people in 2019 and 2020, including billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.