Ex-IRS contractor sentenced to 5 years for releasing tax returns of Donald Trump, thousands of others

WASHINGTON – A former Internal Revenue Service contractor, Charles Littlejohn, was sentenced Monday to five years in prison − the maximum possible − for releasing tax returns of Donald Trump and thousands of other affluent people.

Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty in October to unauthorized disclosure of tax return information.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes sentenced him to prison and fined him $5,000.

“When you target the sitting president of the United States, you target the office,” Reyes said. “It can not be open season on our elected officials.”

Prosecutors had sought the maximum sentence because of Littlejohn's intention to release the confidential tax information and because of the volume of information released for thousands of taxpayers.

"First, Littlejohn stole thousands of individuals’ tax returns and tax information for the purpose of publicizing that information in service of his own political agenda," Corey Amundson, head of the Justice Department's public integrity section, said in a court filing. "He fully understood, indeed intended, that his disclosures would damage his victims’ reputations and hoped that such reputational damage would affect our nation’s political process."

But his defense lawyers said federal guidelines called for four to 10 months. Lisa Manning, one of his lawyers, argued Littlejohn released the tax forms not for personal gain or out of malice but to serve the public interest.

“I acted out of a sincere, if misguided, belief I was serving the public interest,” Littlejohn said Monday. Instead, “my actions undermined the fragile trust we place in government.”

Littlejohn was disturbed that Trump refused to release his tax returns even after being elected president, despite a 50-year tradition of disclosure, according to Manning's filing.

The contractor eventually gained access to 15 years of Trump returns, Manning wrote. He gave them to the New York Times in August 2019 and the paper published articles about them in September 2020.

As Littlejohn learned that billionaires typically paid lower effective tax rates than average American taxpayers, he downloaded tax returns for the wealthiest 500 Americans during the same 15 years, Manning wrote. He provided the documents to the investigative news site ProPublica for stories in September 2020.

“He did what he thought was right at the time, but now fully acknowledges that he was wrong,” Manning said in a court filing. “Mr. Littlejohn recognizes the grave impact of his actions not only on the victims whose tax data he leaked to the media, but also on the very system that he hoped to improve.”

Prosecutors argued he returned to the contracting job after a hiatus intentionally to release tax returns to reporters.

“After applying to work as an IRS consultant with the intention of accessing and disclosing tax returns, Defendant weaponized his access to unmasked taxpayer data to further his own personal, political agenda, believing that he was above the law,” Amundson wrote with prosecutors Jennifer Clarke and Jonathan Jacobson.

After the publication of stories, Littlejohn realized the release was morally wrong and violated the privacy of thousands of taxpayers, according to Manning.

“Mr. Littlejohn’s conduct in this case is inexcusable,” Manning wrote. “He not only broke the law, but breached the trust placed in him by the United States government and violated the privacy of thousands of taxpayers.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ex-IRS contractor gets 5 years for releasing Donald Trump's tax returns