Prosecutors have announced charges against a suspect who allegedly leaked the confidential tax returns of former President Donald Trump and thousands of other wealthy Americans to the left-wing media.
According to the Epoch Times, Charles Littlejohn, a 38-year-old Washington resident who was employed as a government contractor with the Internal Revenue Service, faces one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information.
If convicted, Littlejohn could receive up to five years in prison. The Times noted that prosecutors filed the charge as an “information,” which typically means the defendant is expected to plead guilty.
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In a statement, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said, “Any disclosure of taxpayer information is unacceptable.”
The Justice Department said that Littlejohn “stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official,” as well as “tax return information for thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals.” He then disclosed those returns to two media outlets.
Prosecutors did not identify the victims or the news outlets that received the tax returns by name.
But, as the Times noted, “The charges may, for the first time, link the tax return information disclosures of some of the nation’s richest men and President Trump by liberal organizations ProPublica and the New York Times.”
The events said the allegations match the timeframe of when confidential tax information was spotlighted by ProPublica in 2021 and The New York Times in 2020.
In June 2021, ProPublica published tax returns of billionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Peter Thiel, and others.
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That leak coincided with President Joe Biden’s push for a $1.8 trillion spending bill that sought to raise taxes on the wealthy. ProPublica’s report suggested that those whose records were stolen had not paid their “fair share” of federal taxes for years.
The Times also noted that in September 2020 the New York Times reported on Trump’s 2016 and 2017 tax records. The New York Times sought to out Trump after he became the first president in decades to not publicly release at least some of his tax returns.
The probe to find Litteljohn took two years. His actions were uncovered by an inspector general’s office inside the Treasury Department that looks at potential wrongdoing inside the IRS.
Prosecutors did not disclose how that agency found Littlejohn.
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