Ex-IRS contractor gets five years in prison for leak of tax return information of Trump, rich people

A former contractor for the Internal Revenue Service who pleaded guilty to leaking tax information to news outlets about former President Trump and thousands of the country’s wealthiest people was sentenced to five years in prison Monday.

Charles Edward Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., gave data to the New York Times and ProPublica between 2018 and 2020 in leaks that appeared to be “unparalleled in the IRS’s history,” prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes imposed the maximum sentence, saying the crime targeted the nation’s system of government and its democracy.

Littlejohn apologized and said he alone bears responsibility. “I acted out of a sincere, if misguided, belief I was serving the public interest,” he said. “My actions undermined the fragile trust we place in government.”

Defense attorney Lisa Manning argued for a lower sentence in line with typical guidelines for someone without a criminal record. But Reyes pushed back saying said the crime was extraordinary and the sentence must “deter others who might feel an obligation to break the law.”

Littlejohn had applied to work as a contractor to get Trump’s tax returns and carefully figured out how to search and extract tax data to avoid triggering suspicions internally, prosecutors said in court documents.

Prosecutors had pushed for the five-year sentence, which is among the longest sentences handed down in a leak investigation, according to the Justice Department. Nicole Argentieri, acting assistant attorney general of the department’s criminal division, said the sentence “sends a strong message that those who violate laws intended to protect sensitive tax information will face significant punishment.”

Prosecutors did not name Trump or the outlets in charging documents, but the description and time frame align with stories about Trump’s tax returns in the New York Times and reporting about wealthy Americans’ taxes in the nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica. The 2020 Times report found Trump, who had broken with tradition and refused to voluntarily release his tax returns, paid $750 in federal income tax the year he entered the White House and no income tax at all some years thanks to colossal losses. Six years of his returns were later released by the then-Democrat-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.

ProPublica reported in 2021 on a trove of tax-return data about the wealthiest Americans. It found the 25 richest people legally pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than many ordinary workers do.

Both publications have declined to comment on the charges, and ProPublica reporters previously said they didn’t know the identity of the source. The stories sparked calls for reform on taxes for the wealthy — and calls for investigations into the leaking of tax information, which has specific legal protections.

The IRS has said any disclosure of taxpayer information is unacceptable and the agency has since tightened security.