A former Internal Revenue Service contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking former President Donald Trump’s tax records was sentenced Monday to five years in prison. new york post report.
Blaze News previously reported that in October, Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., leaked the tax documents of “thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals,” including Trump. admitted.
by Ministry of Justicethe former IRS contractor used “broad search parameters” to “hide the true purpose of the query.”
“He then uploaded his tax returns to a private website in order to circumvent IRS protocols established to detect and prevent large-scale downloads and uploads from IRS devices and systems.” The Department of Justice explained.
Littlejohn kept his tax records on multiple personal storage devices before sending some of the information to news outlets, believed to be the New York Times, in August and October 2019. The Times subsequently published an article detailing Trump’s tax returns. In 2021, ProPublica also published an article providing tax information for the nation’s wealthiest people.
Despite pleading guilty to fraudulently disclosing thousands of people’s tax return information, Littlejohn received a maximum sentence of five years in prison. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes sentenced the former IRS contractor to the maximum sentence.
Prosecutors argued that Mr. Littlejohn applied to the IRS for the position in order to obtain Mr. Trump’s tax records.
“What you did by targeting the sitting president of the United States is an attack on our constitutional democracy,” Reyes told Littlejohn. “We can’t have open season on our elected officials.”
Littlejohn said: “I acted on a sincere, if misguided, belief that I was serving the public interest.” His lawyers said Littlejohn was motivated by a “deep moral belief” that the public had a right to know the information he illegally obtained and distributed to the media. Littlejohn leaked the tax information of “ultra-wealthy taxpayers” in the hope that his actions would trigger tax reform.
“Charles Littlejohn abused his position as a consultant to the Internal Revenue Service to steal thousands of Americans’ federal tax returns and other disclosed his personal financial information to the press. He violated the law.” He is now a convicted felon, responsible for protecting the confidential information entrusted to him. ”
Mr. Argentieri said Mr. Littlejohn’s decision sends a “strong message that those who violate laws designed to protect sensitive tax information will face significant penalties.”
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