Donald Trump is taking the federal government to task, filing a massive $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department over the leak of his private tax records. The former president claims that government officials failed in their basic duty to keep his confidential financial history under lock and key, leading to a 2019 disclosure that sparked a firestorm of media scrutiny.
Legal experts are now weighing in on whether the government can be held liable for the actions of its workers. During a recent appearance on “The Evening Edit,” Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett argued that Trump’s case isn’t just political theater—it has real legal legs.
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Jarrett pointed out that the IRS has a fundamental obligation to safeguard the sensitive information of every citizen. When hundreds of thousands of tax returns, including Trump’s, were leaked to the public, Jarrett says the executive branch shouldn’t be allowed to simply shrug off the responsibility.
The fallout from the leak was both public and messy. Jarrett noted that the release of these documents allowed media figures to paint Trump in a “false light,” which he claims caused tangible harm to Trump’s business interests and political reputation. While the IRS eventually apologized for the breach, critics point out that the admission came four years after the information had already been splashed across front pages worldwide.
The backstory involves Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor who was sentenced to five years in prison last year. Littlejohn admitted to stealing 15 years of Trump’s tax data and handing it over to outlets like The New York Times and ProPublica.
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Those reports famously claimed Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes during his first years in office—a narrative Trump has consistently blasted as “fake news” derived from illegal activity.
While a $10 billion payout is an astronomical figure that would be difficult to secure in court, the core of the lawsuit hinges on a simple question: If the government can’t protect your most private financial data from its own contractors, who is going to pay for the damage?
Whether Trump wins a “big chunk of change” or not, the case is set to put the IRS’s security protocols under a very uncomfortable microscope.
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