Big-time tax returns leaker and former Internal Revenue Service contractor, Charles Littlejohn was found guilty on Monday.
The former IRS contractor, who worked for the agency for two years, stole tax information from high-profile personalities and disseminated it to The New York Times and ProPublica.
Court documents confirmed that Littlejohn stole Donald Trump’s tax return details.
The Justice Department said, “In July and August 2020, Littlejohn separately stole tax return information for thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals. Littlejohn was again able to evade IRS detection.”
“In November 2020, Littlejohn disclosed this tax return information to News Organization 2, which published over 50 articles using the stolen data. Littlejohn then obstructed the forthcoming investigation into his conduct by deleting and destroying evidence of his disclosures,” DOJ added.
However, despite the enormity of his crime, he was only sentenced to five years imprisonment.
RealClearInvestigations revealed that the DOJ bargained with US District Judge Ana C. Reyes, a Biden appointee, to sentence the former IRS contractor to only 60 months, despite pulling the “biggest heist of IRS taxpayer data in history.”
Littlejohn stole records of 7,500 other wealthy Americans, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
According to the DOJ, Littlejohn admitted to his crime in October. And claimed that the “prosecutors sought the maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, for “[abusing] his position by unlawfully disclosing thousands of Americans’ federal tax returns and other private financial information to multiple news organizations.”
Political leaders slammed the decision and said Littlejohn’s sentence should be for 60 years.
The DOJ made this sweetheart deal possible because they lumped his case into one felony count instead of seeking charges for each of his offenses.
Littlejohn’s lawyer even justified the crime and argued that the court should lower his sentence since he leaked the data to “reputable news organizations”, as he knew “they would handle the information responsibly.”
Furthermore, Littlejohn’s attorneys pressed that their client was influenced in his views by The New York Times articles calling for the former president to release his tax returns, alleging Trump’s financial ties to Russia. NYT has long been pushing the Left’s narrative of the Trump and Russia link despite a lack of evidence.
Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba denounced the decision and described it as “more like a Hunter Biden plea deal” where the former IRS contractor would just leave “with just a slap on the wrist.”
Littlejohn is a liberal and has supported the Democrats in their campaign to smear Trump after he won the 2016 elections.
