US President Donald Trump sued the US Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for at least US$10 billion over an unauthorised disclosure of his tax returns to the press during his first term in office, potentially putting American taxpayers on the hook for a massive payout.
The suit was filed on Thursday in Miami federal court by Trump, his sons Donald Jnr and Eric, and the Trump Organization, which manages the president’s real estate holdings. Trump had long criticised the IRS for allegedly working to undermine him for political purposes.
Trump’s lawsuit revisits a clash that took centre stage weeks before the 2020 election, when The New York Times published an explosive report on Trump’s tax records that was based on leaked IRS data.
Former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty to stealing Trump’s tax data and leaking it to the Times. He also stole tax records for thousands of other wealthy Americans, including Ken Griffin, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, which he leaked to ProPublica.
Littlejohn, known as Chaz, gave data to The New York Times and ProPublica between 2018 and 2020 in leaks that appeared to be “unparalleled in the IRS’s history,” prosecutors said.
The disclosure violated IRS Code 6103, one of the strictest confidentiality laws in federal statute.
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