By Austin De Dios and Hillary Borrud
oregonlive.com
(TNS)
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden is lambasting President Donald Trump for seeking a payout from taxpayers, after the president filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department last month over leaks of the president’s tax information.
Wyden introduced a bill Tuesday to block the president from receiving any payout, by levying a 100% tax on it. The legislation is unlikely to move given Republicans’ majority in the Senate.
Trump filed the lawsuit along with his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and The Trump Organization. They allege that the federal agencies failed to prevent an IRS contractor from leaking Trump’s tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020.
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Wyden and other critics of the president’s lawsuit have raised concerns that the federal government might not defend the IRS and Treasury Department as vigorously as in other cases, and might be more inclined to settle, given the plaintiff is the sitting president. Trump told a reporter who asked how he would manage being on both sides of the lawsuit that he’s supposed to “work out a settlement with myself.”
That prospect worries Wyden.
“Saying that Trump’s lawsuit against his own government creates a conflict of interest does not begin to describe the depth of corruption behind what he’s doing,” Wyden said in a statement on Wednesday, echoing concerns raised by some ethics watchdogs. “At a time when so many American families are struggling to get by, it’s a shameful abuse of office for Trump to put himself in line to pocket billions of taxpayer dollars.”
The White House on Thursday morning referred a request for comment to Trump’s private attorneys. They could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Trumps say in their lawsuit that the tax leaks caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment” and “unfairly tarnished their business reputations,” The Associated Press has reported. News reports revealed that Trump paid $750 in federal income tax the year he first entered the White House and no income tax at all in some other years.
At least one Republican, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, expressed some skepticism about Trump’s lawsuit, telling NBC News it was “just weird” for the president of the United States to be “suing one of the agencies for which the president is responsible.”
The legislation Wyden introduced with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer would also impose a 100% tax on any settlement with a vice president, cabinet member or member of Congress that results from a lawsuit filed while the official is in office.
Photo caption: Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR)
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©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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