Economist and gold advocate Peter Schiff pointed out what he sees as a glaring inconsistency in Trump’s case.
In a post on X, Schiff said, “The IRS illegally leaked tax return data of 400,000 Americans, including Trump, who’s suing the U.S. government for $10 billion. Since this number bears no relationship to an actual financial loss, if Trump is entitled to $10 billion, so is everyone else. That’s four quadrillion!”
The post got people talking about how damage claims like Trump’s are calculated, and whether he actually lost anything close to $10 billion, or if the number is just meant to punish the government.
Schiff’s comment highlights a broader concern: if data leaks justify huge payouts for high-profile individuals, should the average American expect the same?
Trump Says He’ll Donate All Proceeds to Charity
President Donald Trump says he’s not keeping a dime if he wins his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Treasury.
Instead, he told NBC News, “Any money that I win, I’ll give it to charity, one hundred percent to charity, charities that will be approved by government or whatever.”
The lawsuit, filed in a Miami federal court, accuses the IRS and Treasury of failing to protect his confidential tax information, which was leaked to the media during his first term.
How the Tax Leak Happened
The case centers on a 2020 New York Times report based on Trump’s tax returns.
The data was stolen by former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, who later pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking tax data for Trump and thousands of other wealthy Americans, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Ken Griffin.
Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, wrote in the filing that the IRS and Treasury “had a duty to safeguard and protect plaintiffs’ confidential tax returns and related tax return information from such unauthorized inspection and public disclosure.”
The suit claims that proper monitoring and screening could have prevented the leak.
Trump Floats Names, Defends Impact on Taxpayers
Trump also suggested he could pressure Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the case.
“What I would do? Tell them to pay me, but I’ll give 100% of the money to charity,” he said.
He floated the American Cancer Society as a possible recipient and insisted this wouldn’t hurt taxpayers.
“They give away a lot of money,” Trump said, arguing that a donation back into the charitable system would ultimately keep the money circulating in government-approved programs.
Additional Legal Claims
The president isn’t just targeting the IRS and Treasury. He’s also seeking hundreds of millions more through a separate claim against the Justice Department, accusing it of violating his rights during past investigations into his 2016 campaign and the retention of classified documents.
Trump said he plans to donate that money too, should he receive it.
Legal and Public Reactions
The legal backdrop to the case is rooted in the IRS’s failure to prevent Littlejohn from accessing and distributing sensitive tax records.
Littlejohn admitted in court that he used his role as a contractor to download and leak years of tax data, not just for Trump but also for many other wealthy individuals.
Some of that information was published by ProPublica in addition to the New York Times.
Trump has long accused the IRS of being politically motivated and biased against him. His new lawsuit frames the tax leak not just as a privacy violation but as part of a larger pattern of political targeting.
Still, the number at the center of this case, $10 billion, has drawn skepticism.
There’s no public estimate showing Trump suffered that amount in measurable harm from the leak.
That’s the core of Schiff’s criticism: if one person can claim that figure without clear losses, every one of the 400,000 affected taxpayers could arguably make the same claim, multiplying the potential liability into the quadrillions.
As the case moves forward, legal observers will be watching closely. There are questions about how the court will view the precedent this might set and whether Trump’s promise to donate the money has any bearing on the outcome.
For now, Trump appears focused on framing the case as both a fight for justice and a charitable gesture.
But Schiff’s post may continue to challenge that narrative in the court of public opinion.
IMAGE CREDIT: “Peter Schiff” by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Image adjusted for layout.