By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Legal experts say President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax information raises a plethora of legal and ethical questions, including the propriety of the leader of the executive branch pursuing scorched-earth litigation against the very government he is in charge of.

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The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Florida, includes the president’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric as plaintiffs. It alleges that the leak of Trump’s and the Trump Organization’s confidential tax records caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”

In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn, of Washington, D.C. — who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm — was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about Trump and others to two news outlets between 2018 and 2020.

The outlets were not named in the charging documents, but the description and time frame align with stories about Trump’s tax returns in The New York Times and reporting about wealthy Americans’ taxes in the nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica. The 2020 New York Times report found Trump paid $750 in federal income tax the year he first entered the White House and no income tax at all some years thanks to reported colossal losses.

Legal analysts say that Trump does have a legitimate claim against the IRS but question the amount he is seeking as well as his decision to pursue the case at all. The disclosure violated IRS Code 6103, one of the strictest confidentiality laws in federal statute, which provides a legal remedy for individuals whose tax information is leaked, including a minimum of $1,000 per disclosure.

Since Littlejohn stole tax records of other billionaires, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, there is a possibility the case sets a precedent for other high-wealth earners to seek compensation from the government over the leak.

David Gair, a tax attorney with Troutman Pepper Locke in Dallas who represents individuals whose tax information was included in the Littlejohn leak, told The Associated Press that several clients have already reached out about bringing a potential claim against the government.

“People are saying, well, if he can do it, then why can’t I do it? And so I think you will have a lot more people filing similar lawsuits, thinking that they might be able to piggyback on what he’s doing.”

Amy Hanauer, executive director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, says a legal remedy has already been provided for the leak.

“The contractor who leaked this information has been imprisoned, the Trump administration’s Treasury Department canceled its contracts with the company that employed the leaker, and the IRS issued a rare public apology to taxpayers affected by the leak,” and the IRS has pledged to strengthen its data protection procedures as a result, Hanauer said.

She adds that “even if an unbiased judge rightly rejects Trump’s demands as preposterous, there is a great danger that the IRS would ‘agree’ to settle and pay out an enormous sum of taxpayer dollars to Trump.”

Trump, when asked by a reporter over the weekend how he will manage being on both sides of the lawsuit, referred to a previous complaint he filed against the Department of Justice seeking roughly $230 million in damages over investigations into his 2016 campaign’s Russia ties and the 2022 Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

He added that he’s supposed to “work out a settlement with myself.”

“I think what we’ll do is do something for charity,” Trump said Saturday. “We could make it a substantial amount. Nobody would care because it’s going to go to numerous very good charities.”

A White House representative did not offer details on what organizations might receive any settlement money.

Individuals whose tax information has been leaked don’t have to prove compensatory damages, Gair noted, though Trump is also seeking punitive damages, changing the stakes.

Referring to the deals that Trump’s family business has inked since he won reelection, Gair said Trump may have a hard time showing real harm.

“It’s hard for me to believe that he really had any losses, but maybe,” Gair said.

The military’s Northern Command has taken more than 1,500 active-duty troops in Alaska and North Carolina off heightened alert for possible deployment to Minnesota, a U.S. official said Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

The infantry soldiers and military police were told last month to prepare for a possible deployment to the state, where President Donald Trump had threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act as a response to protests there against the Jan. 7 killing of a Minneapolis woman by a federal immigration officer.

But the shooting death by immigration officers of a second U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, on Jan. 24 galvanized public sentiment against the federal government’s tactics and forced the administration to retreat. Over the weekend, Northern Command quietly ordered the active-duty troops on standby to stand down.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Applications are now open for 2026 NYCHA Resident Climate Action Grants, which fund sustainability projects in the city’s public housing developments. Past winners scored money for community gardens, composting programs and environmentally-focused art workshops.

Past winners scored money for community gardens, composting programs and environmentally-focused art workshops. (Photo by Public Housing Community Fund and The New York Climate Exchange)

Got a climate-friendly idea for NYCHA?

The New York Climate Exchange and the Public Housing Community Fund are now accepting applications to fund resident-led projects that advance climate solutions in the city’s public housing—part of an annual initiative, now in its fourth year, to support things like public gardens and composting.

Residents have until Feb. 12 to submit their ideas for the first step for this year’s NYCHA Resident Climate Action Grants. Approved applicants will then be invited to apply for one of three tiers of funding, ranging from $1,500 or less for one-time or first-time initiatives, to as much as $15,000 for existing projects or organizations that have already made an impact.

The funding has previously been used for things like recycling education and outreach, environmentally-focused art workshops and to expand community gardens. In 2025, grants were awarded to 17 projects across the city, including a campaign to tackle dog waste at the Gowanus Houses, the installation of solar-powered lights and upgrades to public spaces at the Manhattanville Houses, and for cooking and planting classes at the Stapleton Houses.

“Residents have a deep understanding of their communities, and this program empowers them to turn their innovative ideas for sustainability into reality,” NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt said in a statement last week.

Find more information and apply here.

 To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Got a Climate-Friendly Idea for NYCHA? This Grant Could Help Fund It appeared first on City Limits.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that he won’t tear down the Kennedy Center but said it needs to be closed for about two years for work that cannot be done with patrons coming and going for shows and other performances.

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Trump’s comments, though, suggested that the interior of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will be gutted as part of the process.

“I’m not ripping it down,” the Republican president told reporters following an unrelated announcement in the Oval Office. “I’ll be using the steel. So we’re using the structure.”

Such a project would mark Trump’s latest effort to put his stamp on a cultural institution that Congress designated as a living memorial to President Kennedy, a Democrat, in addition to attempting to leave his mark on Washington through other projects, the most prominent of which is adding a ballroom to the White House.

Trump announced Sunday on social media that he intends to close the performing arts venue on July 4 for about two years, subject to approval by a board led by many of his allies. Trump is also the board’s chairman.

The announcement followed a wave of cancellations by leading performers, musicians and groups since the president ousted the previous leadership and his name was added to the building.

Recalling his past career in construction and real estate, Trump said, “you want to sit with something for a little while before you decide on what you want to do.”

Speaking of the Kennedy Center, he said: “We sat with it. We ran it. It’s in very bad shape,” asserting that the building is “run down,” “dilapidated” and “sort of dangerous.”

“You can’t do any work because people are coming in and out.”

He pegged the cost at about $200 million, including the use of “the highest-grade marbles, the highest-grade everything.”

“We’re fully financed and so we’re going to close it and we’re going to make it unbelievable, far better than it ever was, and we’ll be able to do it properly,” Trump said.

He had said last October, also on social media, that the venue would remain open during construction. But on Monday he said that plan was not feasible.

Tarps are installed in front of the sign on the Kennedy Center on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

“I was thinking maybe there’s a way of doing it simultaneously but there really isn’t, and we’re going to have something that when it opens it’s going to be brand new, beautiful,” Trump said.

“The steel will all be checked out because it’ll be fully exposed,” he said. “It’s been up for a long time, but as anybody knows it was in very bad shape. Wasn’t kept well, before I got there,” he said. “So we’re going to make it, I think there won’t be anything like it in the country.”

Trump promised brand new heating and air conditioning systems as part of his latest construction projects. Since he returned to the presidency, the Kennedy Center is one of many Washington landmarks that he has sought to overhaul in his second term.

He demolished the East Wing of the White House and launched a massive $400 million ballroom project, is actively pursuing building a triumphal arch on the other side the Arlington Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial, and has plans for Washington Dulles International Airport.