Trump Coin Lawsuit: Living President Ban and the $250 Bill

A retired Oregon lawyer has asked a federal court to block the U.S. Mint from striking a 24-karat gold commemorative coin featuring President Donald Trump’s face, and the Trump coin lawsuit now turns on a question rooted in an 1866 statute: whether the long-standing ban on putting living people on American money reaches coins at all, or only paper currency. The case, Rickher v. Sullivan et al., No. 3:26-cv-00569, is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon before Judge Karin J. Immergut, who heard arguments in early June 2026 and has yet to issue a written ruling.

What the Mint Planned to Produce

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent authorized the coin project to mark the United States Semiquincentennial on July 4, 2026, using his discretionary authority over coin design under 31 U.S.C. § 5112.¹ The plan calls for 47 individual coins, each struck in 24-karat gold, weighing roughly 19.7 ounces, carrying a face value of $2,026 and an estimated sale value of about $90,000 apiece. The Mint, a self-funded agency, intends to auction them.²

On March 19, 2026, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts unanimously approved the design. The obverse shows Trump standing with his fists pressed against a desk; the reverse shows a bald eagle perched on the Liberty Bell.³ Megan Sullivan, Acting Chief of the Office of Design Management at the Mint, told the Commission that Trump had personally selected the design.⁴ U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the coins “represent the enduring spirit of our country and democracy” and that “there is no profile more emblematic for the front of such coins than that of our serving President.”⁵

Does the Law Actually Ban a Living President on a Coin?

The prohibition traces to Spencer M. Clark, the first superintendent of the National Currency Bureau, who in 1866 slipped his own portrait onto a five-cent fractional note that Congress had meant to honor explorer William Clark. Representative Russell Thayer of Pennsylvania responded with an amendment, enacted April 7, 1866, declaring that “hereafter no portrait or likeness of any living person shall be engraved or placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes, or postal currency of the United States.”⁶

That language, now codified at 31 U.S.C. § 5114, covers “currency and securities” and provides that “only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities.”⁷ The original Thayer text listed “bonds, securities, notes, or postal currency.” It did not mention coins.⁸

A separate statute, 31 U.S.C. § 5112, addresses coinage. It carries its own living-person restriction, but only in the context of the Presidential $1 Coin Program: “No coin issued under this subsection may bear the image of a living former or current President.”⁹ The government reads that limit as tied to the $1 program alone, and argues that the Secretary’s broader design authority elsewhere in § 5112 permits the commemorative gold coin. The plaintiff reads the statutory scheme, and the purpose behind Thayer, as forbidding it.

Who Sued and Why

James M. Rickher filed his complaint on March 24, 2026, naming Bessent and Sullivan as defendants and seeking a preliminary injunction against producing, distributing, or selling any coin bearing a living person’s likeness.¹⁰¹¹

Rickher spent over 22 years with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service as both an agent and an attorney, and previously worked as a public defender in Waukegan, Illinois. This is his first civil suit. He is representing himself, drawing on a civil law course he took decades ago at Northern Illinois University College of Law. “I see a violation there and I don’t think they should get away with it,” he told reporters. “They push boundaries … and why not push back.”¹¹

Rickher’s core argument is statutory, but he frames the purpose broadly. The prohibition exists, he says, “to avoid political self-promotion,” and a limited-run collector’s coin that still functions as legal tender is exactly the “political glorification” Congress meant to prevent.¹² To establish standing, he told the court he participates in the coin-collecting market and that a government-issued illegal coin would destroy the market’s integrity: “the structure of the coin market would be destroyed by a sovereign who is supposed to be following the law but issuing a coin that is illegal.”²

The Government’s Defense

Justice Department attorney Kathryn Barragan argued four grounds for dismissing the case.¹³

Rickher lacks standing. His interest is abstract, and his claim of market harm is speculative and unsupported by any expert evidence.
The suit is premature. The Treasury Secretary has not yet given final design approval, a required step before production begins.
The living-person prohibition applies to paper bills, not coins.
Living people have appeared on U.S. coins before without market harm: Alabama Governor Thomas Kilby on the 1921 Alabama centennial half dollar, President Calvin Coolidge on the 1926 sesquicentennial half dollar, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver on the 1995 Special Olympics silver dollar.²

Barragan acknowledged it was “unlikely” the Secretary would remove Trump’s image, but noted he could still “reject it wholesale” and that “nothing’s absolute.”²

Rickher called the earlier coins “unenforced” violations rather than legitimate precedents. The 1926 Coolidge coin lends him some support: though authorized by a congressional resolution, it proved unpopular, and most of the roughly one million struck were returned to the Mint and melted. The 1995 Special Olympics coin, by contrast, was authorized expressly by Congress under Public Law 102-328 and was the first U.S. coin to portray a living woman.¹⁴

Where the Case Stands

Judge Immergut heard arguments in early June 2026 and pressed both sides hard. She interrupted Barragan at least six times demanding the “purpose” behind the living-person prohibition. “What’s the purpose. … I don’t want the long-winded version,” she said. When Rickher suggested at one point that the Mint should feature former President Barack Obama instead, the judge replied, “He’s not dead either.” She also questioned what concrete harm Rickher himself would suffer if the coins were produced.²

A sworn declaration from April Stafford, Director of the Office of Design Management at the Mint, confirmed that no coins had been produced as of early June 2026. Stafford said the Secretary had not yet granted formal design approval, and that once he does, striking the 47 coins would take months. That timeline means the coins will not be ready for the July 4, 2026, anniversary.²

Immergut issued no ruling from the bench. She ordered the government to notify the court immediately if the Secretary grants final approval or changes the design, and said a written decision would follow.

A Separate Push: The $250 Bill

The gold coin is not the only pending effort to put Trump on American money, though it is the only one now in court. Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina introduced the “Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act,” H.R. 1761, in February 2025, directing the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to design a $250 bill featuring Trump and creating a specific exemption from the Thayer Amendment for former presidents.¹⁵ As of mid-2026, the bill faced long odds in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed and Republicans held 53 seats.¹⁶ Because that bill would amend the paper-currency statute directly, it does not resolve the coin question at the heart of the Rickher case, which turns on whether existing law already forbids what the Mint is preparing to strike.

1
NPR. US Mint Can Begin to Produce Trump Commemorative Gold Coin
2
The Oregonian. Judge Questions Legality of Trump Gold Coin in Portland Hearing
3
The New York Times. Trump Gold Coin
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CityNews Halifax. US Mint Can Begin Producing Trump Commemorative Gold Coin After Arts Commission Approves Design
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PBS NewsHour. Trump Commemorative Gold Coin Approved for U.S. Mint to Produce for Americas 250th
6
Atlas Obscura. Treasury Official US Bill Fractional Money Spencer M Clark
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 U.S.C. § 5114
8
Military.com. Why American Currency Can Only Feature Images of Dead People
9
Cornell Law Institute. 31 U.S.C. § 5112
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Newsweek. Lawsuit Donald Trump Face US Coins Delay
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KPTV. Why Not Push Back: Retired Portland-Based Lawyer Files Lawsuit Over Trump Commemorative Coin
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FindLaw. A Change in Change: Trump Faces Lawsuit Over Plan to Put Himself on Coin
13
Raw Story. Trump Gold Coin
14
U.S. Mint. Special Olympics World Games Commemorative Coin
15
Office of Rep. Joe Wilson. Wilson Introduces Legislation to Print President Trump New $250 Bill
16
The Guardian. Trump $250 Bill