Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been forced to admit that taxpayers will foot the bill if Donald Trump wins a $10 billion lawsuit he’s filed against the Internal Revenue Service over his tax returns.
The president, joined by his sons Eric and Don Jr, as well as the Trump Organization, has filed a civil lawsuit in a federal court in Miami against the IRS, which is currently overseen by Bessent as acting director.
The lawsuit claims that federal agencies failed to safeguard his private tax returns and other confidential information when a former IRS contractor accessed his tax records between 2018 and 2020 and leaked them to The New York Times and ProPublica.
But in a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Bessent was cornered into admitting that the spoils of that lawsuit would come out of the pockets of ordinary Americans.
“Would you agree that $10 billion is a good sum of money?” asked Arizona Democrat Ruben Gallego.
“Yes sir,” replied Bessent, a billionaire former hedge fund investor.
“Where would that be cut from?” Gallego asked. “Let’s say, for some reason, he actually wins that lawsuit. So where would that $10 billion come from?
“Uh, uh, again, it would come from….” Bessent stammered.
“Process wise,” Gallego clarified. “I’m not asking your opinion on whether it’s right or wrong.”
“It would come from Treasury,” Bessent admitted.
“Which comes from the general fund?” said Gallego.
“The treasury general account,” the treasury secretary acknowledged.
“So taxpayers,” said Gallego.
“Uh, yeah,” Bessent replied.
The potentially lucrative lawsuit is highly unusual because Trump, as president, now leads the government agencies he is suing—and the Justice Department is the entity defending the IRS and Treasury in court.
That combination has raised ethical and conflict-of-interest questions, while the fact that the money has come from taxpayers has enraged his critics at a time when affordability is an issue for many Americans.
But the lawsuit is not the only one Trump has in store.
Before returning to the White House, the president also filed legal action seeking a reported $230 million from the Department of Justice, now overseen by Attorney General Pam Bondi, for a series of past actions.
These include an FBI investigation into potential ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, and the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago resort over his mishandling of classified documents–an issue that continues to bug the president to this day.
“They went through my wife’s drawers,” he lamented in an interview on NBC on Wednesday night, immediately observing: “That’s a double meaning.”
Trump insisted that if he won the lawsuits, he would give the money to charity.
“Well, what I would do is tell them to pay me,” he said, “but I’ll give 100 per cent of the money to charity. I don’t want any of that money.
But Democratic National Committee rapid response director Kendall Witmer said $10 billion could cover over 75 per cent of the cost of extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act credits for 2026, which Republicans have refused to do, leading to soaring health care premiums for struggling families.
“While Trump enriches himself and his family, everyday Americans are barely getting by, drowning under the weight of high prices and disappearing jobs in Trump’s failing economy,” Witmer said.
“Yet Trump is laser focused on securing kickbacks for himself, his rich friends, and his wealthy donors while turning his back on everyday Americans.”
