IRS Consultant Charged With Leaking Tax Information on Trump and Others to the Media
“Littlejohn faces a maximum five years in prison, the Justice Department said.”
A consultant working with the IRS was recently charged with leaking tax information on Trump and other wealthy individuals to news organizations.
We saw a lot of this kind of thing when Trump was president. These people see themselves as heroes of the ‘Resistance’ or something.
Politico reports:
UPDATED: IRS consultant charged in massive leak of taxpayer data
A consultant for the IRS has been charged with leaking to the news media private tax information about former President Donald Trump and thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people.
Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., stole the files while working as a government contractor and gave them to two news organizations, the Justice Department announced Friday.
The agency doesn’t identify the outlets, though it appears to be referring to ProPublica and the New York Times.
In a court document, the government says the leaks included information about “Public Official A,” which a person familiar with the charges confirmed is Trump.
Littlejohn faces a maximum five years in prison, the Justice Department said.
This guy is the Ray Epps of stealing tax return information. According to the corrupt DOJ's own press release, an IRS official stole "thousands" of tax returns and leaked them to the left-wing media, and they're charging him with a single criminal count. https://t.co/8j8pFyNl9g
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 29, 2023
One count? Amazing.
From the Justice Department:
IRS Consultant Charged with Disclosing Tax Return Information to News Organizations
An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) consultant was charged today with disclosing tax return information without authorization.
According to court documents, Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., while working at the IRS as a government contractor, stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official (Public Official A) and disclosed it to a news organization (News Organization 1). Littlejohn also stole tax return information for thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals, and disclosed this tax return information to another news organization (News Organization 2).
Littlejohn is charged with one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Five years. What a joke.
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Comments
I think the IRS deserves more credit here. The importance of taxpayer confidentiality is instilled in every employee, and it held true here. Leading with “IRS Consultant” unfairly gives the impression the IRS was involved in the leak. This is a cheap shot. Several insider trading cases have been broken after identifying crooked printers. They weren’t identified as company consultants. This is not honorable reporting.
I beg to differ.
The tax information that the IRS collects is exclusive to the IRS, and there are laws and policies that prohibit the release of those documents.
The I R S
Anytime any agency or person who is contracted by the IRS or any government agency is bound to follow those requirements. Thus, all employees of those contractors are required to have the necessary clearances, background checks, and obligations as any civil service employee.
Thus, when the IRS gives access to confidential documents, the IRS is just as culpable as the contractor and the contractors employees.
So, under your comment, a contractor’s employee for the DoD can release classified information and the DoD isn’t culpable.
This clown should be charged individually for every document released for each individual taxpayer. The sentence should be 1,000 times the sentence he received.
Then the contractor should be barred from working for the government in any capacity.
I didn’t say the contractor was free to do as he wishes. I said no IRS employee leaked the information. Vetting of contractors only goes so far. This is not like the FBI where the brass conspires to pull off political hit jobs. The IRS had its own shameful conduct in the Lois Learner affair. I like to think conservatives are the clear thinkers. Every time the IRS buys ammunition for its CID agents, boobs hyperventilate about 87,ooo uzi-carrying accountants kicking in doors at 3:00 AM. It’s Alex Jones stuff.
In private corporations, HIPPA is treated the same way.
I am liable as the corporation whether I do it or a contractor does it.
Same here, the IRS is just as culpable in my opinion. I agree with the good Sargeant on that point.
If it’s any different, then you could use a contractor to leak it. Which may be what Democrats did here or it just might be a rogue contractor – no difference, the IRS is responsible from my perspective. I don’t care if JPMorgan leaks my financial records or a subcontractor – it’s the same.
Further, the DoJ doesn’t care about conservatives at all regardless of the law.
So why is this being prosecuted?
Because DoJ wants to show that “hey, we did our job we aren’t partisan”.
Undoubtedly it will be a de minimis sentence but just enough to satisfy independent voters.
“Hey they are fair, someone went to jail for releasing Trumps tax returns”
Maybe only for 30 days.
Maybe a conservative leaker would have gotten 1000 counts and 5 year maximum.
But just enough to give Democrats the talking point.
That’s all this is about. Cover for re-election.
This is a Political story! Of course, one is under ordinary circumstances responsible for the actions of his subcontractor. The IRS is responsible here. But these stories are trying to build a case that the IRS, at the top, nefariously worked to undermine Trump. The reporting is hoping to conflate the true FBI top-down rot with the IRS. That is not true in this instance. Probably a lone, woke homo, subcontractor.
The question is, do you they trust those people whose official job it is to steal from you?
Gah, do you trust …
His reward for furnishing his masters with the means to attack Trump? Five years in prison.
He’s the lucky one! See Epstein for how badly it can go
he will not get 5 years, if it’s a DC jury he’ll get nothing
He won’t get 5 years, he’ll get a wrist slap and then secretly be rewarded
Leftists continuing to destroy democracy in order to save it.
You don’t say
Can you say two-tiered justice system?
It is a shame when the citizens of the US are no longer served by alphabet agencies that have Service in their title.
You can’t trust the Internal Revenue Service to maintain confidentiality.
My wife tells me that she was told to no longer place checks in mailed envelopes because the United States Postal Service employees steal the checks and sell the bank info.
Service? My ass.
We need to either rid these bureaucrats, or close the agencies.
“Can you say two-tiered justice system?”
No.
We don’t have one.
We don’t have a justice system at all.
We have the force of the state being applied on demand to those the administration wants hurt.
Their are no ‘tiers’
There is only madness.
Well. You got me there. I am in agreement. Which is probably why I use the “Just Us” department moniker most times.
It is shocking in that the IRS did not slow walk the investigation until the statute of limitations had expired. Isn’t that how justice works for those aligned against Trump or for Biden? Then again, they are only charging the person with one count so that is something to confirm our new and improved dual form of justice in America.
It’s Garland’s woke DOJ, again. Doing everything possible to erode public trust in the DOJ.
Again, Democrat operatives in government, out of government or sympathetic to Democrats goal of total war against all enemies. This ‘consultant’ will be in the news for a while and then out, to be rewarded for his efforts later.
The law applies to everyone….except demon-rats, lmnopqrs+, antifa, blm, illegal aliens, the list goes on & on….
A culture in decline
An outside contractor accesses the tax returns of Trump in the time frame of 2018 to 2020. That means he illegally obtained and released the tax return of a sitting US President… and the IRS did not immediately take action at that time?
The bottom line here is that political opponents weaponize government agencies by having third party contractors do the dirty work and then sanction them for minor offenses, all in the name of “preserving the integrity of the institution”.
How about holding him in jail for at least a year before the trial? And no credit for time served awaiting trial.
You know what would prevent this from happening again? Repealing the 16th amendment and replacing it with a national sales tax. Then there’d be no reason to have an IRS and no reason to collect information on American citizens.
I get what you’re saying. But remember, there are 40 or more states that collect income tax. While we could theoretically keep the feds in the dark, the states are still going to be a trove of information. And, it’s exploitable information as well. Remember when ‘Joe the Plumber’ (RIP) had the temerity to ask Obama a question and a week later, all kinds of confidential information on him, including his tax returns, were leaked by an Obama loyalist working as a bureaucrat in the state of Ohio government.
All of the states but in many of them the statute begins that if you are liable to pay federal income tax, then this is how we assess state income tax. Remove the liability for federal income tax and Most states would no longer have a state income tax
That was supposed to start with “I don’t know about all of the states..” I really hate Autocorrect
Congress doesn’t need the 16th amendment to tax income derived from labor, which is how most of us earn most of our income. Repealing the 16th wouldn’t affect that at all.
The 16th was only necessary in order to tax income derived from property; and that was only under the then-SCOTUS’s view that taxing such income is a direct tax, which must be apportioned in some way that nobody understands. The current SCOTUS would probably say it’s not a direct tax, so it can go ahead without the 16th.
I am not in favor of a national tax because they would eventually tax income again, then we would be stuck with both.
I worked for the IRS for over 20 years.
During that time, it was stressed that taxpayer information should not be shared with anyone, who did not have a reason to know the information.
For example, one could not say I have President X’s return, and you cannot believe what he deducted!
Someone from within the IRS must have decided that the perp should have access to the returns.
What is the justification to release the info to the perp?
Hopefully, the whole story will be released and that this event will not take place again.
Littlejohn? Is that a new way to spell scapegoat?
I mean seriously, ONE lowly contractor gets busted and charged after the Lois Lerner IRS nothing-to-see-here targeting fest? He must have peed in the wrong coffee cup.
Please, the Biden regime and the DOJ with it’s slack jawed U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland are now desperately attempting to convince the American pulbic that the “laws of the United States are equally applied to everyone” and there isn’t a two-tiered justice system in the country that favors the rich elite over the common citizen.
So, they’ll catch a few low-level flunkies that may have violated the law, make a big media production about it, and then proclaim that “justice is equally administered to all and not the privilidged few” and that will be about it.
But we all know better, right?
let’s recap
Sussman, who lied to the FBI , found not guilty
DOJ lawyer 180 degrees changed CIA response to help set off Russia probe got six months and is now back practicing law
Greg Craig represented, not a FARA registered agent, was found not guilty
etc
My guess is the IRS contractor wil get the medal of freedom
What a surprise that the organization that was set up specifically to steal from the American people is also not honest with them.
So, they can find out who leaked Trumps taxes but not who leaked Roe or left cocaine in the WH or follow the Biden money trail or how Pelosi got so rich not to mention DiFi or…or….
Well, this is a false dichotomy.
For it to be a perfect dichotomy, they would NOT have been able to find out who leaked Trump’s taxes.
One count? Let’s now apply that logic to every other defendant facing Federal charges. Pretty sure the DoJ won’t agree to do that for others.
Littlejohn should never be allowed to work for any govenment agency even if he never sees a day in jail
Littlejohn wasn’t just any consultant. He worked for Booz Allen, a firm closely linked to the CIA.
https://x.com/jessebwatters/status/1709384088757678390?s=46&t=BkptPQapUr0q3aOH3JDykQ