A former Internal Revenue Service contractor accused of leaking the tax records of Donald J. Trump and other wealthy Americans was sentenced Monday to five years in prison.
The former contractor, Charles Littlejohn, known as Chaz, worked for the IRS from 2017 to 2021 when he stole the tax records of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, including Mr. Trump, prosecutors said. Mr. Littlejohn then provided the information to the New York Times and ProPublica.
Prosecutors said his actions “appear to be unparalleled in the history of the IRS.”
Mr. Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty late last year to one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax return information. In addition to five years in prison, which is one of the longest sentences in a federal leak investigation, Mr. Littlejohn was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, 300 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine.
“Today’s sentence sends a strong message that those who violate laws designed to protect sensitive tax information will face significant punishment,” Nicole M. Argentieri, the deputy attorney general who oversees the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a statement. Prosecutors said the damage from Mr Littlejohn’s revelations was “so far-reaching and ongoing that it is impossible to quantify”.
A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump has refused to release his tax returns, the first president to do so since the 1970s. The documents, considered critical to understanding his wealth and business practices, have drawn so much public interest that the commissioner of the IRS ordered that Mr. Trump’s records be secured in a special vault.
Mr. Littlejohn, who had also worked as a contractor for the IRS between 2008 and 2013, sought work there again in 2017 with the intention of stealing Mr. Trump’s tax records, prosecutors said. During that time, prosecutors said, Mr. Littlejohn “weaponized his access to exposed taxpayer data to advance his own personal, political agenda, believing he was above the law.”
In 2020, citing Mr. Trump’s tax filings, the Times reported that the former president paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he was elected president, and that he had paid no income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years. In 2021, ProPublica published details on how the 25 richest Americans, including Jeff Bezos, Michael R. Bloomberg, Elon Musk and others, paid relatively little in federal income taxes. The revelations have revived calls by Democrats for an estate tax.
Sen. Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, who was also named in the ProPublica report, said in a letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland last week that he was among “thousands of American taxpayers” subjected to “partisan abuse” by Mr. Littlejohn.
A lawyer for Mr Littlejohn, Lisa Manning, said her client did not disclose the tax documents to benefit himself.
“He committed this offense out of a deep, moral belief that the American people had a right to know the information, and sharing it was the only way to effect change,” Ms. Manning wrote in a sentencing memo.
The revelations have fueled long-standing accusations that the tax agency is acting politically motivated, which agency officials have denied. In late 2022, the House House Ways and Means Committee released six years of Mr. Trump’s tax returns after a years-long legal battle.
