WASHINGTON — The former Internal Revenue Service contractor who leaked former President Donald Trump’s tax records The New York Times as well as the tax records of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk ProPublica was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday.
Charles Littlejohn admitted his guilt in October and prosecutors searched for the statutory maximum of five years in federal prison, saying he “abused his position by illegally releasing the federal tax returns and other private financial information of thousands of Americans to multiple news organizations.” Littlejohn “weaponized access to unmasked taxpayer information to further his personal, political agenda, believing he was above the law,” prosecutors said.
Littlecon was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ana J. Reyes at a hearing in federal court in Washington. He will also have to pay a $5,000 fine.
“You can be a prominent person and do bad things,” Reyes said. “What you did by targeting the current president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy,” he said.
Reyes compared Littlecon’s actions to recent attacks and threats against elected officials, as well as the Jan. 6 defendants he recently sentenced. He described his actions as a deliberate, sophisticated, multi-year criminal scheme, but said he believed he “felt a sincere moral imperative” to act as he did.
Littlejohn’s attorney argued that he committed the crime “out of a deep, moral conviction that the American people have a right to know information and that sharing it is the only way to effect change,” and that he believed he was right at the time.
While Littlecon’s conduct was “inexcusable,” his attorney said, “it violated the trust placed in him by the United States government and compromised the privacy of thousands of taxpayers,” a “strong message of general deterrence” has already been sent to the public. .
Littlecon, 38, who grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, made a brief appearance in court before receiving his sentence, saying he “acted out of a sincere but mistaken belief that I was serving the community.”
Taxpayers deserved to know how easy it is for the wealthy to avoid paying into the system, Littlejohn said, adding that he believes Americans make the best decisions when they are properly informed.
“I made my decision knowing full well that I would probably be in a courtroom,” he said.