US President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department, seeking at least $10 billion in damages over the alleged unauthorized leak of his tax returns during his first administration.
The suit, filed on Thursday in a federal court in Florida, lists Trump alongside his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump as plaintiffs.
The filing states that Trump is suing the IRS and Treasury in a personal capacity, rather than as president.
According to the lawsuit, the government failed to safeguard confidential tax information belonging to Trump and the Trump Organization, which was later leaked to the media by Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor.
Littlejohn, who worked through government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, is accused of illegally obtaining and disclosing Trump’s tax records to news outlets including The New York Times and ProPublica.
In 2024, Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of disclosing thousands of tax returns without authorization including those of Trump and other wealthy individuals.
Trump’s legal team argued that the IRS should be held legally responsible for Littlejohn’s actions, claiming he had “staff-like access” to sensitive tax data and exploited long-standing security weaknesses that had reportedly been flagged but not fixed.
In a statement, Trump’s lawyers accused the IRS of allowing what they described as a “rogue, politically-motivated employee” to leak private information to what they called “left-wing news outlets,” adding that Trump would continue to hold institutions accountable.
CNN reported it has reached out to the IRS, the Treasury Department and Booz Allen Hamilton for comment.
The lawsuit comes as the Treasury Department recently cut ties with Booz Allen Hamilton, announcing the cancellation of $21 million in federal contracts.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cited the tax leak case in explaining the decision, saying the firm failed to implement adequate safeguards for sensitive taxpayer data accessed through IRS contracts.
Trump’s tax returns became a major political issue during his first term after he refused to release them, breaking with decades of tradition among presidential candidates.
In 2022, six years of his tax returns were made public by the House Ways and Means Committee following a legal dispute that reached the Supreme Court.
