A past worker affiliated with the Internal Revenue Service has been found guilty of disseminating confidential tax details of the former U.S. President Donald Trump and several top-earning Americans to media agencies. On Thursday, he confessed to the federal accusations as part of a plea deal.
Charles Edward Littlejohn, aged 38, hailing from Washington, D.C., faced accusations by the Justice Department of illicitly obtaining and distributing tax data to a couple of news organizations over the span of 2018 to 2020.
Presiding over the case, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes expressed her significant concerns about the consequences of his actions on Trump and many others. She stated, “Any actions that bypass the law can destabilize society. Such behavior is, without a doubt, inexcusable. Believing that the goal validates the approach is a fallacy.”
Littlejohn confessed to the unauthorized sharing of tax records. This particular charge can lead to a maximum of five years behind bars. However, the final sentencing, scheduled for January 29, rests in the judge’s hands.
Lisa Manning, representing Littlejohn, chose not to issue any statements.
Although the exact media entities haven’t been explicitly mentioned in the allegations, the specifics seem to correlate with Donald Trump’s tax-related articles in The New York Times and pieces highlighting the tax details of the affluent Americans in the non-profit journalism entity, ProPublica.
In 2020, The New York Times disclosed that Trump had only contributed $750 towards federal income tax in the year he assumed the presidential office and in some instances, paid nothing, attributing this to significant financial setbacks. Half a decade’s worth of his tax details were eventually made public by the House Ways and Means Committee, which was under Democratic control at the time.
On the other hand, in 2021, ProPublica shed light on extensive tax data concerning America’s financial elites, revealing that the topmost 25 earners often legally contribute a tinier portion of their earnings in taxes compared to the average employee.
Both The New York Times and ProPublica refrained from commenting on the matter, with ProPublica’s journalists emphasizing their ignorance regarding the original source. These revelations instigated demands for overhauls in taxation for the wealthy and also led to requests for probes into the unauthorized tax data dissemination, which has stringent legal safeguards.
In response, the IRS emphasized that revealing taxpayer data is entirely inappropriate, and they have fortified their security measures accordingly.
