President Donald Trump, his eldest two sons and the Trump organization have filed a lawsuit against the IRS, seeking at least $10 billion in damages for failing to prevent the leaking of their financial data in 2019 and 2020.
Charles “Chaz” Littlejohn, a former employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, illegally leaked thousands of wealthy clients’ confidential tax filings, including the president’s, to media outlets during those years. Booz Allen contracted with the IRS at the time and the lawsuit alleges that Littlejohn was able to obtain the records because the IRS did not ensure proper security measures were in place.
Littlejohn was convicted of one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax information and is currently serving a five-year sentence in a federal prison.
The Treasury Department also cut ties with the consulting firm earlier this week, cancelling millions in contracts and saying it was also partly responsible for Littlejohn’s crimes. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Booz Allen also “failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data” that Littlejohn accessed.
The filing disputes that Trump’s tax documents included “versions of fraud,” as ProPublica reported based on the files it received from Littlejohn, and cites “significant and irreparable harm to the plaintiffs.”
“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 reads.
The president also filed administrative claims against the Department of Justice in October, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for alleged misconduct in the Russia collusion investigation and a later investigation into whether he had improperly retained classified documents after his first term.
Some warn of a conflict of interest in the president suing the government he currently leads.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in a federal Florida court.
