Justice Department prosecutors say the man charged with leaking former President Trump’s tax returns sought his job as an IRS consultant specifically for the purpose of leaking the information.
Charles Littlejohn had done work for Booze 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. The DOJ says Littlejohn considered Trump to be a threat to democracy, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“[Littlejohn] weaponized his access to unmasked taxpayer data to further his own personal political agenda, believing that he was above the law,” prosecutors alleged.
“A free press and public engagement with the media are critical to any healthy democracy, but stealing and leaking private, personal tax information strips individuals of the legal protection of their most sensitive data,” they added.
Former President Trump. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
The DOJ went on to say that Littlejohn had a “sophisticated, detailed plan to secretly download” Trump’s returns and those of other wealthy individuals by 2018, according to WSJ.
The DOJ says Littlejohn later uploaded the returns to a private website he owned, which allowed him to bypass IRS systems meant to detect large transfers of data.
Once in possession of the data, he allegedly made several copies of it and sat on the information for roughly six months before contacting the New York Times. The DOJ said one of the flash drives containing the information was hidden “inside the lining of a wooden leather box containing an ornamental camel,” according to the Journal.
The Justice Department said Charles Littlejohn had a “sophisticated, detailed plan to secretly download” former President Trump’s tax returns. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The Times then published several articles about the content of Trump’s returns, and Littlejohn also shared the returns of thousands of wealthy Americans with the organization ProPublica. That led to a series of articles detailing the tax information of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and many others dating back 15 years.
Elon Musk’s tax returns were among those leaked to ProPublica, allegedly by Charles Littlejohn. (Justin Sullivan)
Republicans on Capitol Hill were dismayed late last year when Littlejohn was only charged with one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax information, despite leaking the information of thousands of Americans.
“We write today to express concern abut the Department of Justice’s decision to charge Charles Edward Littlejohn with only one count of unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information despite his admissions that he made two distinct disclosures to two separate news organizations impacting potentially thousands of taxpayers,” wrote House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., along with other Republicans.
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Lawyers for Trump have requested that Littlejohn receive the maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report
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