Washington — The Internal Revenue Service contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking the federal tax records of former President Donald Trump and some of the nation’s wealthiest individuals was sentenced Monday to 5 years in prison, 3 years supervised release and a $5,000 fine. The sentence brings an end to a criminal case that exposed the source of a number of high-profile tax information leaks in recent years.
Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information in October and faced a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison. Investigators said he used his position as a contractor with the nation’s tax collector to illegally obtain and then disperse the financial records of the former president, which resulted in “numerous articles” based on the information.
Before sentencing Littlejohn on Monday, federal District Judge Ana Reyes called his conduct “an attack on our constitutional democracy.”
“He targeted the sitting president of the United States of America, and that is exceptional by any measure,” Judge Reyes said. “It cannot be open season on our elected officials.”
Littlejohn made a brief statement before the court, acknowledging that “I alone am responsible for this crime.” He said he was driven by a desire for transparency, but was also aware of the potential consequences of his actions.
“I made my decision with full knowledge that I would likely end up in a courtroom to answer for my serious crime,” he said. “I used my skills to systematically violate the privacy of thousands of people.”
Littlejohn’s explanations did not appear to sway the court’s sentencing decision. Reyes said courts must be an “unbreakable bulwark” for American democracy in the face of increased threats.
The court’s job, the judge said, was to make sure that others never viewed “this type of conduct as acceptable or justifiable or worth the trade-off…We are a nation of laws.”
In a filing ahead of Monday’s hearing, prosecutors said that over a two-year time period, Littlejohn “abused his position” and “weaponized his access to unmasked taxpayer data to further his own personal, political agenda, believing that he was above the law.”
Government attorneys urged the judge to impose the statutory maximum prison sentence against him, saying in court Monday that “he sought to influence an election and reshape the nation’s political discourse” in one of the “most serious” crimes in IRS history.
Charging records did not name Trump as the high-ranking government official alleged by investigators to have been victimized by Littlejohn’s conduct, but a person familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News at the time that it was the former president. One of Trump’s attorneys attended a plea hearing last year to read an impact statement on the former president’s behalf.
Prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo this month that Littlejohn — who had previously worked at the IRS contracting company — returned to a position working with the IRS “with the hope and expectation” of gaining access to Trump’s tax records. They alleged he “exploited a loophole” in the computing system to upload the stolen data to a private website and then stored the information on a personal…
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