Why Trump Is Suing the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 Billion

Time - President Donald Trump, alongside the Trump Organization, and his sons Eric and Donald Jr., is suing the IRS and the Treasury Department for $10 billion.

In a lawsuit filed in a Miami federal court Thursday, Trump and the other plaintiffs accused the federal agencies of failing in their duty of stopping former Internal Revenue Service contractor Charles Littlejohn—who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company—from illegally obtaining and disclosing tax returns to the New York Times, ProPublica, and “other leftist media outlets,” between May 2019 and September 2020.

The lawsuit claims the IRS and Treasury Department “had a duty to safeguard and protect plaintiffs’ confidential tax returns and related tax return information from such unauthorized inspection and public disclosure.” It argues that both departments were “obligated to have appropriate technical, employee screening, security, and monitoring systems to prevent Littlejohn’s unlawful conduct.”

Such leaks have caused “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, the lawsuit alleges. 

Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2024 for “disclosing thousands of tax returns without authorization,” according to the Justice Department.