The ex-IRS contractor who was responsible for leaking President Donald Trump’s tax returns also divulged information about more than 405,000 other filers, the agency revealed to the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month.
Charles Littlejohn, who is serving a five-year prison sentence in Florida for leaking the president’s tax returns to ProPublica and The New York Times, pleaded guilty to one count of the unauthorized disclosure of return information even though the leak involved the disclosure of thousands of filers.
Last year, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, opened an investigation into the DOJ’s “unusual and questionable leniency” towards Littlejohn following his prison sentence.
EX-IRS CONTRACTOR WHO LEAKED TRUMP’S TAX RETURNS SENTENCED TO 5 YEARS IN PRISON
“The Department’s decision to pursue just one charge for ‘thousands’ of separate criminal acts is highly concerning, and we worry that the Department’s decision may be politically motivated,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Nicole Argentierti, the DOJ’s then acting assistant attorney general of its criminal division.
At the time, Jordan wrote he was only aware of Littlejohn leaking information belonging to 7,600 Americans. He requested information on the full scale of the leaks and the IRS responded with updated numbers in a Feb. 14 letter to Jordan.
“Relying on data analysis by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) and the IRS, the IRS mailed notifications to 405,427 taxpayers whose taxpayer information was inappropriately disclosed by Mr. Littlejohn,” the IRS wrote to Jordan in its response.
“Approximately 89% of the taxpayers are business entities.”
The IRS told Jordan that all 405,427 taxpayers impacted by the leaks have been notified via mail.
The agency said last year that it had begun informing more than 70,000 companies and individuals impacted by the leaks. It’s unclear why the figure has ballooned to 405,427 taxpayers.
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The DOJ said at the time that Littlejohn considered Trump to be a threat to democracy, while the leak also involved the disclosure of tax returns of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.
Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2024. The sentence also includes 36 months of supervised release and a $5,000 fine.
Judge Ana Reyes condemned Littlejohn’s actions when handing down the sentence last year, saying the leak was “an intolerable attack on our constitutional democracy.”
“The press tells us Democracy dies in darkness. It also dies in lawlessness,” the judge said. “There are numerous lawful means to bring things to light. Trump was under no obligation to expose his returns. People could vote for someone else. They could run against him.”
Federal prosecutors said Littlejohn sought his job as an IRS consultant specifically to leak Trump’s tax returns in 2019. Littlejohn worked for Booz Allen from 2008 to 2013, but he returned to the company as an IRS consultant in 2017. Prosecutors say the career move was meant to grant him access to private tax information that would allow him to leak Trump’s tax returns.
