Trump sues IRS for $10 billion over past leak of tax information

President Trump sued the IRS on Thursday, saying his own tax agency should pay him $10 billion for having allowed his private tax information to be leaked during his first term in office.

Mr. Trump and sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. said the IRS gave access to Charles Littlejohn, a contractor who used his access to the IRS databases to hone in on Mr. Trump’s tax information. He managed to exfiltrate it and deliver it to The New York Times, which published intimate details of the president’s finances.

Littlejohn would eventually be discovered, charged and convicted of the breach. He is serving a federal prison sentence.

The Trumps said that despite working for a contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, the IRS treated Littlejohn like a federal employee, so the tax agency bears responsibility for his behavior. They said the IRS ignored warnings about its technology, leaving it vulnerable to Littlejohn’s moves.

“Defendants were obligated to have appropriate technical, employee screening, security, and monitoring systems to prevent Littlejohn’s unlawful conduct,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants failed to take such mandatory precautions.”

Littlejohn also stole and leaked secret tax information on thousands of wealthy Americans to ProPublica, including information on Mr. Trump.

The breaches happened in 2019 and 2020. The Trump family said it was officially notified of the breach in 2024, kicking off a two-year window in which to file the new lawsuit.

Littlejohn said he took the consultant’s job with the intention of fetching Mr. Trump’s secret tax information.

He went through complicated machinations to download and exfiltrate the data,

Democrats mocked the lawsuit.

“Donald Trump is a cheat and a grifter to his core, and for him to abuse his office in an attempt to steal $10 billion from the American taxpayer is a shameless, disgusting act of corruption,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the IRS.