A former United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) contractor was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday (Jan 29) for leaking the tax records of thousands of Americans, including former President Donald Trump.
About the sentence
Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty in October to one count of unauthorised disclosures of income tax returns.
According to a plea deal, the former employee of a consulting firm – which worked on a contractual basis with the IRS – stole the tax data of Trump and “thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people” and leaked it to two news outlets.
US District Judge Ana Reyes who handed the five-year prison sentence called Littlejohn’s actions a threat to democracy and linked it to broader attacks on elected officials in Washington.
“What you did in targeting the sitting president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy,” Reyes told Littlejohn. “We’re talking about someone who…pulled off the biggest heist in IRS history.”
The federal prosecutors have sought a five-year sentence, the maximum allowed under US law, saying that the 38-year-old was motivated by a political agenda and compromised the security of sensitive personal information.
“A free press and public engagement with the media are critical to any healthy democracy, but stealing and leaking private, personal tax information strips individuals of the legal protection of their most sensitive data,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
The prosecutors alleged that Littlejohn, in 2017, sought a position at a consulting firm that works with the IRS hoping to get access to and disclose records on then-president Trump.
Tax data leaked
During the 2016 presidential election, the Republican candidate became the first one in decades who had not released his tax returns when he ran for the White House.
According to court documents, Littlejohn secretly downloaded years of Trump’s tax records in 2018 and later shared them with reporters from the New York Times.
In 2020, the American newspaper, based on the information, published a series of articles revealing that Trump paid no income tax in 10 of the 15 years before he took office.
Littlejohn leaked information about more than 8,000 income tax returns relating to about 7,600 people. He also leaked information about “ultra-high net worth taxpayers” to investigative news outlet ProPublica.
The media outlet, based on the information, published nearly 50 articles and revealed how the wealthy have evaded taxes in the US.
In court, on Monday, the 38-year-old apologised for his actions. “I acted out of a sincere, if misguided, belief that I was serving the public interest,” Littlejohn told the court.
He added, “We as a country make the best decisions when we are all properly informed.”
His lawyers also said that he was motivated by a “deep, moral belief” that the public had a right to know the information he shared.
(With inputs from agencies)
