A former consultant who worked with the Internal Revenue Service has been charged with disclosing the tax returns of former President Donald Trump, while he was in office, to the New York Times, as was recently announced by federal prosecutors.
According to a press statement released by the Department of Justice, the suspect is Charles Littlejohn. 38 years old and a resident of Washington D.C., Mr. Littlejohn is accused of using his access to leak the tax returns of thousands of America’s wealthiest citizens to news organizations.
“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),” the DOJ announcement began.
“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),” the Department of Justice continued.
Giving details on what charge Mr. Littlejohn is being drawn up and what penalty he faces if convicted, the statement added, “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.”
POLITICO, adding more detail on the leak to give context as to why it was such a big deal, said, “The announcement comes more than two years after ProPublica said it had obtained a massive trove of information about the taxes and incomes of wealthy people, many of them well known, going back some 15 years. It published a series of stories showing many of them paid little or nothing in taxes.”
Continuing, that outlet added that leaks from the IRS are rare and so surprised IRS personnel, saying, “The leak astonished many IRS veterans, not just because of its sheer scale, but because tax filings are subject to elaborate safeguards and unauthorized disclosures are rare.”
IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, in a statement that came out alongside the announcement of Mr. Littlejohn’s indictment, said, “Any disclosure of taxpayer information is unacceptable.” He added, “The IRS has put in place new protocols and protections that tightened security, and our aggressive work in this critical area continues in order to protect the tax and financial information of taxpayers.”
Those impacted were less impressed with the IRS. Ken Griffin, the hedge fund manager suing the IRS because his data was leaked by Mr. Littlejohn, said, “The government has a fundamental obligation to protect the confidentiality of Americans’ sensitive information, whether it be tax records or healthcare records.”
Top Republicans remain unimpressed as well. Sen. Mike Crapo, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said, “While many questions remain, at the very least, IRS guardrails failed to prevent this brazen breach of taxpayer rights.”
Continuing, Sen. Crapo added, “It goes without saying that resolving these and other ongoing security issues at the IRS, as well as identifying and making whole the individuals impacted by this breach, must be the IRS’s highest priority.”
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