IRS leak was ‘attack on our constitutional democracy,’ with aim ‘to influence an election through illegal activity’
A federal appeals court is affirming a five-year prison sentence for Charles Littlejohn, a consultant to the IRS who leaked President Trump’s tax return information to the New York Times and tax information about thousands of the richest Americans including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett to ProPublica.
The 16-page opinion by a three-judge panel—Justin Walker, Neomi Rao, and Judith Rogers—found that the sentence was reasonable. It offers a scathing narrative of Littlejohn’s behavior. At this writing, the decision hasn’t been reported in either the New York Times or ProPublica, which describes itself as “a nonprofit, investigative newsroom that exposes corruption.”
“In 2017, Charles Littlejohn obtained a job as a consultant to the Internal Revenue Service so that he could steal and leak the tax returns of President Donald Trump,” the opinion says. “Two years into his elaborate scheme, in 2019, Littlejohn gave President Trump’s tax return and return information to a reporter for the New York Times. He then helped the reporter analyze the data and leaked more tax returns and return information to supplement his original leak. Finally, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Times began publishing articles based on what Littlejohn had stolen,” the opinion says.
It continues, “he used his ‘skills to systematically violate the privacy of thousands of innocent people’ by stealing the tax returns and return information of about 600 entities and about 7,600 of the wealthiest Americans. He then leaked what he stole to ProPublica, which used data regarding at least 152 of his victims in about 50 articles,” the opinion says. A company I owned was among those affected.
“As a result of Littlejohn’s crime, his victims lost business. They were disparaged countless times. And their families were physically threatened,” the opinion says. “To this day, ProPublica is sitting on the private, as-yet unpublished data of other taxpayers stolen by Littlejohn. But those taxpayers continue to fear that ProPublica will publish their data in the future.”
Littlejohn pleaded guilty in 2023 to one count of unlawfully disclosing tax information. Prosecutors asked for, and got, the maximum five-year prison sentence, a $5,000 fine, a $100 special assessment and three years of supervised release despite the guilty plea. That prompted Littlejohn’s appeal.
The appeals panel found, “his crime was politically motivated, at least in part because one of his motives was to change tax policy by (in Littlejohn’s words) showing ‘just how easy it was for the wealthiest among us to avoid paying into our system.’”
It also found, “his crime was an attack on a sitting president because he wanted to inform voters about (in his words) ‘the tax returns of the sitting president before they decided on how they were going to vote.’”
Additionally, the court ruled, “his crime was an attack on our constitutional democracy because his goal was to influence an election through illegal activity.”
The opinion mentions that the district court judge, Ana Reyes, who issued the sentence mentioned the “ongoing harm to victims who did not know (and still do not know) when the next ProPublica article will drop, possibly hurting their businesses, harming their reputations, and jeopardizing their physical safety.”
The opinion concludes, “Littlejohn’s sentence was procedurally reasonable. And it was substantively reasonable. So we affirm.”
According to the Bureau of Prisons, Littlejohn, 41, is being held at the federal correctional institution in Marion, Ill. His scheduled release date is August 8, 2027.
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