President Donald Trump is suing the IRS as part of a $10 billion complain. But, according to court documents, his complaint is with the government's actions during his own tenure.
Lawyer Ed Whelan, at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who writes for the conservative National Review, posted in a thread on X noting Trump is relying on IRS leaks from May 2019 through Sept. 2020 for his lawsuit. Trump was president during that time.
"Thus [he] had formal responsibility over those agencies," said Whelan, noting that the suit was "ridiculous."
"So, Trump, in personal capacity, is suing agencies now in his charge for their failings when they were previously in his charge," mocked Whelan.
He also noted that Trump's problem is that the statute of limitations has passed for each of the claims.
"The first claim, under 26 USC 7431(a)(1), has to be brought 'within 2 years after the date of discovery by the plaintiff of the unauthorized ... disclosure,'" Whelan explained. "The complaint acknowledges that provision governs. Trump knew of the leaks back in 2020."
The legal complaint tries to get around the problem because it claimed they couldn't bring a lawsuit against an unknowable, indeterminate defendant (i.e., Charles Littlejohn) to vindicate their rights until they were notified of criminal charges against Littlejohn. But Littlejohn isn't the defendant. The Treasury and IRS are. And Trump knew back in 2020 that they had allowed the allegedly unlawful leaks. So that claim is time-barred."
The second claim, in which Trump alleges violations under the Privacy Act, also has a two-year expiration.
"It would be really something if DOJ were to attempt to waive the limitations period," Whelen added.
"Seems to me that it wasn't long ago that conservatives decried vexatious litigants and those who tried to fleece American taxpayers. By the way, the ten billion dollars in damages that Trump seeks to extract from US taxpayers is only for supposed actual damages, and it's just a floor ('at least 10,000,000,000.00'). He also seeks unspecified punitive damages on top of that," he commented.