A yearslong dispute over leaked tax records has now escalated into a massive courtroom fight.
President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, accusing the agency of unlawfully allowing his confidential tax returns to be disclosed in violation of federal privacy laws, according to Fox News.
The complaint alleges the disclosures were politically motivated and caused widespread harm.
According to a spokesman for Trump’s legal team, the lawsuit centers on what they described as misconduct by a single IRS contractor who allegedly abused his position to access and distribute sensitive information.
“A rogue, politically motivated” IRS employee disclosed private and confidential tax information involving Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to media outlets, including The New York Times and ProPublica, the spokesman told Fox News.
The lawsuit claims those disclosures were illegal and represented a serious breach of federal law designed to protect taxpayer privacy.
It further argues that the fallout extended beyond Trump himself, undermining public trust in the IRS and harming millions of Americans whose data depends on the same safeguards.
At the center of the case is Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor who admitted to stealing and leaking tax return information. In October 2023, Littlejohn pleaded guilty to a single felony count of unauthorized disclosure of tax return information and was later sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Littlejohn acknowledged leaking Trump’s tax records to The New York Times and separately providing confidential tax data related to wealthy individuals to ProPublica.
According to Trump’s lawsuit, Littlejohn testified during a 2024 deposition that the materials he disclosed included information covering all of Trump’s business holdings.
As previously reported by Fox News Digital, Littlejohn declined to testify before Congress, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights while appealing his sentence.
The lawsuit argues that the IRS bears responsibility for failing to prevent the disclosures and for allowing access to sensitive information without adequate oversight.
The Department of Justice has previously characterized the incident as extraordinary. In a June 2025 Judiciary Committee press release, DOJ prosecutors described Littlejohn’s actions as “unprecedented in its scope and scale.”
Trump’s legal action seeks damages tied to the alleged violations and aims to hold the IRS accountable for what his team argues was a fundamental breakdown in the protection of confidential taxpayer information.
The case now places renewed scrutiny on how the IRS safeguards sensitive data — and whether the agency can be held liable when those protections fail in such a high-profile way.
