Surely you don’t remember Charles Littlejohn. He is the guy who was nabbed for leaking the tax returns of President Trump to the New York Times. He also leaked tax information of thousands of the most successful and wealthy Americans including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett to ProPublica. He pleaded guilty to only one crime, but he committed many.
Ira Stoll reports this underreported sequel for the Washington Free Beacon in “Appeals Court Affirms 5-Year Prison Term for Source who Leaked Tax Info to NY Times and ProPublica” (“IRS leak was ‘attack on our constitutional democracy,’ with aim ‘to influence an election through illegal activity”). This is the good news of the day — let it be known. Stoll writes:
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A federal appeals court is affirming a five-year prison sentence for Charles Littlejohn, a consultant to the IRS who leaked President Trump’s tax return information to the New York Times and tax information about thousands of the richest Americans including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett to ProPublica.
The 16-page opinion by a three-judge panel—Justin Walker, Neomi Rao, and Judith Rogers—found that the sentence was reasonable. It offers a scathing narrative of Littlejohn’s behavior. At this writing, the decision hasn’t been reported in either the New York Times or ProPublica, which describes itself as “a nonprofit, investigative newsroom that exposes corruption.”
“In 2017, Charles Littlejohn obtained a job as a consultant to the Internal Revenue Service so that he could steal and leak the tax returns of President Donald Trump,” the opinion says. “Two years into his elaborate scheme, in 2019, Littlejohn gave President Trump’s tax return and return information to a reporter for the New York Times. He then helped the reporter analyze the data and leaked more tax returns and return information to supplement his original leak. Finally, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Times began publishing articles based on what Littlejohn had stolen,” the opinion says.
It continues, “he used his ‘skills to systematically violate the privacy of thousands of innocent people’ by stealing the tax returns and return information of about 600 entities and about 7,600 of the wealthiest Americans. He then leaked what he stole to ProPublica, which used data regarding at least 152 of his victims in about 50 articles,” the opinion says. A company I owned was among those affected.
“As a result of Littlejohn’s crime, his victims lost business. They were disparaged countless times. And their families were physically threatened,” the opinion says. “To this day, ProPublica is sitting on the private, as-yet unpublished data of other taxpayers stolen by Littlejohn. But those taxpayers continue to fear that ProPublica will publish their data in the future.”
Read the whole thing here.
