Oct. 13 (UPI) — An Internal Revenue Service contractor accused of leaking the tax information of former President Donald Trump and thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people to news organizations has pleaded guilty.
Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., entered his guilty plea Thursday to one count of disclosing tax return information without authorization.
He is to be sentenced Jan. 29, when he faces a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.
“By using his role as a government contractor to gain access to private tax information, steal that information and disclose it publicly, Charles Littlejohn broke federal law and betrayed the public’s trust,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The tax returns of the former president were an issue of contention during his first presidential campaign and then during his tenure as commander in chief as he broke tradition by not revealing it to the public. Trump had argued he couldn’t reveal his tax information as he was under audit — an issue the IRS said didn’t prevent him from maintaining the tradition.
Littlejohn worked as a contractor for the IRS, and prosecutors said in the indictment against him that from 2018 to about 2020, he stole tax returns associated with Trump, who is listed in the document as Public Official A, and others dating back more than 15 years.
Prosecutors said that he concealed his theft and downloaded the tax returns to personal storage devices, including an iPod, and then handed the information over to an unnamed news organization between August and October 2019.
That unnamed news organization, believed to be The New York Times, published articles with the use of the stolen information in September of 2020.
Then between July and August 2020, Littlejohn was accused of separately stealing the tax return information of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, which he disclosed to a second news organization — believed to be ProPublica — and was used in the production of more than 50 articles.
“The unauthorized theft and disclosure of tax return information by government employees or contractors is a serious breach of the public’s trust,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement. “The department will hold accountable those who illegally exploit their access to sensitive personal information.”
Littlejohn was charged in late September, with the Department of Justice having launched an investigation into the leaks in 2021.