By benadeta mwaura - Reporter
Kenya, January 30, 2026 - U.S. President Donald Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization have filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, alleging that the agencies failed to safeguard their confidential tax returns and allowed them to be leaked to the media.
The civil complaint was lodged in federal court in Miami on January 29, 2026, and argues that the disclosure caused substantial reputational, financial and political harm to the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit, one of several major legal actions Trump has initiated since his return to the White House, centers on the unauthorized release of his and his family’s personal and business tax records in 2019 and 2020.
These records were allegedly leaked by a former IRS contractor, Charles “Chaz” Littlejohn, who later pleaded guilty and, in 2024, was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing and disclosing confidential tax data.
The leaked records were published in high-profile reports by The New York Times and ProPublica, detailing decades of Trump’s tax information and showing periods where he paid little to no federal income tax.
In their complaint, the Trump family claims that the IRS and Treasury “willfully, knowingly, and/or by gross negligence unlawfully accessed and inspected” their tax return information and failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect it from disclosure.
They contend that this breach of confidentiality violated strict federal tax privacy laws, including Internal Revenue Code Section 6103, which is designed to guard taxpayer data against unauthorized access or release.
The plaintiffs argue that the tax leaks caused them “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished business reputations, portrayed them in a false light and negatively affected…public standing,” and allege that the disclosures may even have influenced political dynamics during the 2020 election.
The lawsuit seeks at least $10 billion in damages, including punitive and compensatory awards, and frames the government’s alleged failure to prevent the leak as a serious breach of public trust.
In the wake of the leak, the Treasury Department terminated contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm that employed Littlejohn at the time of the breach, citing the firm’s failure to provide adequate data protections.
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In late January 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that all 31 contracts with the firm, worth nearly $21 million in total commitments, were canceled to strengthen safeguards for sensitive taxpayer information. The stock price of Booz Allen briefly declined following the announcement.
The IRS and Treasury have not publicly commented on the Trump family lawsuit as of the filing, although previous statements acknowledged the incident and noted steps to enhance data security after Littlejohn’s conviction.
Legal analysts note that it is highly unusual for a sitting U.S. president to sue executive branch agencies, especially ones he oversees, over actions that occurred while he held or influenced authority.
The Trump complaint frames the lawsuit as a personal legal action, not an official presidential directive, though implications for governance and tax privacy law are significant.
The case also revives longstanding controversy over Trump’s tax records. Reports based on the leaked documents revealed that Trump reportedly paid only $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017 and little to none in many other years prior to 2020, a disclosure that triggered intense public debate at the time.
On social and public forums, reactions have been sharply divided. Some commentators characterized the action as an attempt to seek accountability for a breach of privacy, while others derided it as problematic given the taxpayer basis of government expenditures and the unusual nature of a president suing agencies under his control.
Online discussions have highlighted concerns that if successful, damages could be paid from public funds, raising questions about overlap between personal and public interests in governance.
