Charles Littlejohn, a 38-year-old former IRS contractor, was sentenced to five years in prison for leaking former President Donald Trump's tax records. Littlejohn was also behind the tax record leaks of billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
This Monday, Judge Ana Reyes decided to give Littlejohn the maximum sentence for revealing tax return information without authorization. The sentence includes 36 months of supervised release and a $5,000 fine.
In court in Washington, D.C., Littlejohn said he "acted out of a sincere but misguided belief that I was serving the public" and admitted that he made his decision with full knowledge of the possible legal consequences. However, the judge considered what the former contractor did was "an intolerable attack on our constitutional democracy" and stressed that there are "numerous lawful means to bring things to light."
"Trump was under no obligation to expose his returns (…)[Littlejohn] targeted the sitting president of the United States of America, and that is exceptional by any measure," she added.
The judge ordered Littlejohn to turn himself in by April 30.
The records leak
Littlejohn turned over a large quantity of Donald Trump's tax documents to the New York Times in August 2019, and the newspaper began publishing stories based on that leak in September 2020, triggering a controversy over the low amount of taxes paid in previous years by the then-president.
In addition to the former president's tax records leak, Littlejohn also took data from the 500 wealthiest people in the country in the summer of 2020 and provided it to ProPublica, the Prosecutor's Office revealed.
During the trial, the accusing party asserted that the former contractor strategically sought his position as an IRS consultant with the specific intention of obtaining access to confidential tax information that would allow him to carry out the leak of the former president's tax returns.
"[Littlejohn] weaponized his access to unmasked taxpayer data to further his own personal political agenda, believing that he was above the law. 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," the Prosecutor's Office argued.
