menu_open Columnists
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Trump is embarrassed, and wants us to pay him $10 billion because of it

20 0
saturday

President Donald Trump is suing the Internal Revenue Service to force the American people to pay him at least $10 billion in damages because he was embarrassed when his tax returns leaked out in 2020.

Trump ordered his appointees at federal agencies to speedily give him the billions to settle his lawsuit. But on April 24, federal Judge Kathleen Williams temporarily stopped the greatest shakedown in presidential history.

This tawdry tale took off in late January, when Trump’s lawyers sued the IRS because a contractor sent the president’s tax returns to The New York Times in 2020. That contractor was sentenced to prison for five years, but Trump apparently believes that the American people still owe him a king’s ransom.

Trump is suing an agency he oversees for negligence

The lawsuit asserts that the leaked tax returns caused Trump and his sons “public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”

Almost all presidents voluntarily disclose their tax returns. From 2014 onward, Trump often promised to disclose his tax returns if he ran for the presidency, but he never released them.

When the returns finally leaked out just before the 2020 election, many Americans were appalled. In 2016 and 2017, Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes each year and “paid no income taxes at all in 10........

© USA TODAY