Leaker Of Trump's Taxes Gets 'Slap On The Wrist' From Biden DOJ
Susan Shelley
On Oct. 12, former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty to disclosing tax return information without authorization.
You may remember that somebody leaked multiple years of President Donald Trump’s tax information to The New York Times before the 2020 election. On Sept. 27, 2020, the Times reported that it had “obtained tax-return data extending more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office.”
You may also remember that in June 2021, ProPublica reported that it had “obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years.”
Charles Littlejohn did that. As an IRS contractor working on the agency’s information technology, he evaded the many security measures used by the IRS to prevent employees from accessing data. He used a search technique to capture tax returns that matched certain characteristics instead of searching for individual names. Then he uploaded all the data to a private website, thus avoiding IRS detection when he downloaded everything to various devices and leaked the data to reporters. He did this over the course of a year, and according to the Department of Justice, he intentionally obstructed any future investigation “by deleting and destroying evidence of his disclosures.”
The case was investigated by the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration. The inspector general’s office, known as TIGTA, can’t bring charges itself. It can only make a criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice, and the DOJ prosecutors decide what charges to bring based on the evidence from the investigation.
For this massive, plainly political, completely illegal theft and leak of the private tax information of thousands of Americans including the president of the United States, prosecutors in the Biden Justice Department charged Charles Littlejohn with just one count of “disclosing tax return information without authorization.”
The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and prosecutors quickly announced a plea deal recommending that Littlejohn serve eight to 14 months in prison and pay a fine of up to $40,000. A judge will have to approve that plea agreement. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 29, 2024.
more
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/27/irs-leaker-who-stole-trumps-tax-returns-gets-slap-on-the-wrist-from-biden-doj/
