Trump Demands $10 Billion From Taxpayers For Leaked Tax Returns; His Own Lawyers Get To Decide What He Gets
from the wake-up-babe,-a-new-level-of-corruption-has-been-revealed dept
Back in May, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt offered what might be the single most audacious statement of the Trump era—and that’s saying something:
I think everybody – the American public believe it’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.
Anyway, in unrelated news, Donald Trump just filed a lawsuit against his own IRS, demanding that taxpayers pay him $10 billion.
Ten. Billion. Dollars.
The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court in Miami, claims that Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization were grievously harmed when IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn leaked Trump’s tax returns to the New York Times and ProPublica back in 2019 and 2020. Littlejohn was caught, prosecuted, and is currently serving a five-year prison sentence—the system worked, justice was served, case closed. But apparently that’s not enough for a man whose appetite for grift has no discernible ceiling.
Before we dive into why this lawsuit is weapons-grade insane, let’s establish some context that the complaint conveniently glosses over.
When Trump first ran for president in 2016, he broke with decades of tradition by refusing to release his tax returns. Every major party nominee since Nixon had done so voluntarily. Trump’s excuse? He was being audited and would release them after the audit was complete. Somehow, nearly a decade later, those returns were never officially released. There’s no clear evidence the audit ever existed. The whole thing had the distinct aroma of a man who had something to hide.
In 2020, the New York Times obtained 17 years of Trump’s tax records from Littlejohn. The reporting revealed that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, and paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years—largely by reporting chronic business losses. The House Ways & Means Committee later obtained and released some of his returns through proper legal channels.
And the result of all this exposure? Trump won the 2024 election and his net worth has skyrocketed in such an obvious way that, contra Karoline Leavitt’s statement, it would be difficult to find anyone who legitimately believes that Trump isn’t profiting off his Presidency.
According to Forbes, Trump’s wealth jumped from $3.9 billion in 2024 to $7.3 billion by September 2025, driven largely by his crypto ventures and the value of Trump Media and Technology Group. So grievous was the harm from this leak that Trump is now richer than he’s ever been.
Which brings us to the lawsuit. Trump is demanding $10 billion—more than his entire current net worth—from the federal government. The federal government he controls and which he’s stocked with cronies.
I need to repeat that. Donald Trump is trying to more than double his personal wealth by simply demanding that the IRS, which he controls, give him $10 billion in taxpayer funds. This goes beyond corruption. You need a different word for this altogether.
Let’s break down the multiple levels on which this is absolutely batshit:
The President is suing his own government. Think about this for a moment. Trump controls the executive branch. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department. The Department of Justice—which would normally defend the government in such lawsuits—is currently headed by an Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General who previously worked as Trump’s personal lawyers and who have repeatedly made it clear that they view their current jobs as still being the President’s personal lawyers. The idea that Trump can file a lawsuit against agencies he controls, staffed with loyalists who seem to believe they work for him personally rather than the American people, is so blatantly corrupt that it puts pretty much all past corruption to shame.
As I wrote last year when Trump demanded a mere $230 million in a similar scheme, this creates a situation where Trump’s own lawyers get to decide whether Trump’s claims should be successful—and potentially how much taxpayer money flows directly into his pocket. The fact that it’s now more than 40 times that amount just demonstrates that his corruption has no upper bound.
The damages claimed are laughable. The complaint lists the horrifying “harm” Trump suffered. Hold onto your hats:
ProPublica published at least 50 articles as a result of Defendants’ unlawful disclosures, many of which contained false and inflammatory claims about Defendants’ confidential tax documents.
And:
Because of Defendants’ wrongful conduct, Plaintiffs were subject to, among many others, at least eight (“8”) separate stories in the New York Times which wrongly and specifically alleged various improprieties related to Plaintiffs’ financial records and taxpayer history
Eight. Stories. In the New York Times. That’s apparently worth $10 billion in damages. From the US taxpayer. Trump has probably generated more negative headlines in a single weekend of Truth Social posts.
And if the stories were really defamatory (note: they weren’t) sue those publications for defamation and… see how that goes. Because Trump’s defamation lawsuits have a remarkable track record of getting laughed out of court.
But here—clever, clever, clever—this case need never go to court. The IRS and the DOJ (both run by Trump loyalists) can just “settle” and hand over however much taxpayer money Trump wants.
The complaint undermines itself. In a truly galaxy-brained move, Trump’s lawyers included this gem from Littlejohn’s deposition:
When asked, “so you were looking to do something to cause some kind of harm to him?” Mr. Littlejohn responded, “Less about harm, more just about a statement. I mean, there’s little harm that can actually be done to him, I think. . . He’s shown a remarkable resilience.”
They put this in their own complaint. The guy who leaked the documents, when asked under oath whether he intended to cause harm, essentially said “nah, you can’t really hurt that guy.” And Trump’s lawyers thought this helped their case.
Or… they knew that it doesn’t matter how bad the complaint actually is because Trump is effectively playing both sides, and that means the side the benefits Trump personally (at the expense of the American taxpayer) is almost certain to win out.
Isn’t it great the Roberts Supreme Court said there’s nothing the courts can do to stop this?
The legal theory is absurd. The complaint argues that the IRS should have known Littlejohn would leak documents because… the Treasury Inspector General had warned about “security deficiencies” in the IRS’s data protection systems. By this logic, any time any government system has any vulnerability, taxpayers should be on the hook for billions if that vulnerability is ever exploited. It’s malpractice dressed up in legal formatting.
The complaint also leans heavily on politicized language that has no place in a legal filing:
From May 2019 through at least September 2020, former IRS employee Charles “Chaz” Littlejohn, who was jointly employed by the IRS and/or one of its contractors, illegally obtained access to, and disclosed Plaintiffs’ tax returns and return information to the New York Times, ProPublica, and other leftist media outlets.
“Leftist media outlets.” In a legal complaint. Filed by a sitting president. Against his own government. Demanding $10 billion. This is a political document, rather than a serious legal complaint. Because, again, the legal stance here makes no difference. There is no adversarial process. Only Trump’s insatiable desire to take people’s money.
This is especially rich given everything else happening. This lawsuit lands at a time when Trump’s administration is gutting the IRS’s enforcement capabilities, when the DOJ has been transformed into Trump’s personal law firm, and when the government is lurching from shutdown to shutdown. But sure, let’s cut Donald Trump a check for ten billion dollars because reporters wrote stories about his taxes—taxes he refused to release voluntarily despite decades of precedent (and which also, once leaked, didn’t appear to do him the slightest bit of political damage).
For all the talk about cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse,” the president himself is attempting to walk off with enough taxpayer money to fund the entire National Endowment for the Arts for the next 60 years.
And the most galling part? Every other presidential candidate in modern history released their tax returns willingly. Trump’s entire complaint rests on the premise that he was harmed by the public learning information that every other candidate simply… disclosed. The audacity of claiming $10 billion in damages for being forced into a transparency that was voluntary for everyone else is genuinely breathtaking.
Littlejohn broke the law. He knew it, he did it anyway, and he’s paying for it with five years of his life. Some have argued he was a whistleblower serving the public interest; others say a law is a law. But none of that matters here, because what Trump is doing has nothing to do with justice or compensation for actual harm.
This is a sitting president attempting to use the legal system to transfer $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury—which belongs to the American people—into his personal bank account. The case will be litigated by a Justice Department stuffed with his former personal attorneys. The damages he claims are fantastical. The harm he allegedly suffered resulted in him getting richer than ever and winning re-election.
So yes, Karoline, you’re right: this is absurd. Just not in the way you meant.
Filed Under: charles littlejohn, corruption, doj, donald trump, irs, tax returns, wtf, wtf is this i don't even
Comments on “Trump Demands $10 Billion From Taxpayers For Leaked Tax Returns; His Own Lawyers Get To Decide What He Gets”
Kleptocracy.
This reminds me, Trump loves to rant and rave about how poorly and dysfunctionally the countries of origin of many migrant to the USA are run, and how bad things look like there.
You know why those countries are so poorly run, Donald? You know why things are so bad there?
Because countries like that are usually run by people who love to pay out large amounts of public money to themselves. Because they’re usually run by people who love to name everything after themselves. Because they’re usually run by people who love to decorate everything in sight with lots of glittering gold. Because they’re usually run by people who love to have their subordinates praise them to high Heaven all the time. Because they’re usually run by people who let their armed goons do whatever they want. #
In short, because they’re run by people like you.
the presidency is like an ATM
Because the IRS is a federal agency he gives the orders. He can tell them to settle the lawsuit and we have to pay.
Re:
No, we don’t. I changed my Federal withholding to EXEMPT the day the Orange Kid Raping PDFile was sworn in for the 2nd time. If every other right thinkling American did the same, well…..
Re:
So, once they do, will any data leak cost the U.S. government ten billion dollars? Because this administration has not been very careful about protecting the data of ordinary citizens… hell, I’m sure a few of the affected people would settle for ten million.
People voted for this clown. That is the truly depressing part. Enough people bought what he was selling enough to vote for him. Twice.
That fact alone should be enough to illustrate how broken the system is, that enough people felt disillusioned and disenfranchised enough from mainstream politics that they voted for an absolute clown. Mark my words, there will be more Trumps if things don’t change in a meaningful way, and for that to happen Democrats and more moderate Republicans need to start engaging seriously with people’s disenfranchisement.
In a sane and lawful U.S. the President doesn’t “control” the IRS, but thanks to the current SCOTUS the POTUS is considered above the law.
He said he wanted to release his taxes
He said he wanted to release his taxes but couldnt. So really the leak was just helping him. How can he say he wants the taxes released then complain when they are?
Re:
Because he’s demented.
You thought leaking his tax returns, and all the lawfare bullshit was great, at the time.
Turns out it was not. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Re:
“Look what you made me do!”
Re:
You know you’re not gonna get a single cent of that $10 billion, right?
Re:
Why not? It ended up demonstrating his corruption even more clearly than he had demonstrated it in the past. Why is it not great when we are proven right about something? Ultimately, this makes him look pretty ridiculous on top of all else. Why is something that ends with one of our most important opponents making himself look even more ridiculous than he had already done in the past somehow not great for us?
It used to be that Americans mocked other countries for being ruled by the kind of people who act like that.
Re:
You thought not paying taxes to help the poor “undeserving” people was great. Turns out, you voted to pay your taxes to a billionaire instead.
Who is the dumbass now?
Gee, I sure am glad USAID was shuttered from all that fraud, waste, and abuse so Donald Fucking Trump can put almost a quarter of their 2024 budget in his own pocket.
Similar to how police 'internal reviews' always seem to clear their own...
The truly bonkers thing is this actually makes perfect sense if you happen to believe, as Trump and the rest of the republicans clearly do, that ‘president’ is just a different way of saying ‘king'(only when it’s one of theirs of course) and that by being president he owns and controls the entire government.
Looked at through that lens he’s not ‘stealing’ ten billion dollars of taxpayer money because in his dementia-riddled mind it was already his the second he took office, he’s just shifting which bank account it’s located in.