The former IRS contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking former President Donald Trump’s tax documents will now spend the next five years in prison.
Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty to the charge of taking tax return information without authorization. Now, he has been sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 for leaking the documents to media outlets in 2019 and 2020.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes handed down the sentence on Monday in Washington, D.C.
“The scope and scale [is] unparalleled in the IRS’s history,” Reyes said. “You have caused and have risked causing immense harm to thousands of Americans.”
A sentencing memo filed by prosecutors and obtained by ABC News said that Littlejohn “abused his position by unlawfully disclosing thousands of Americans’ federal tax returns and other private financial information to multiple news organizations.”
During the sentencing, Reyes also said that Littlejohn had “no legal obligation” to disclose the documents that he did.
“You can be an outstanding person and commit bad acts. What you did in targeting a sitting president of the United States is an attack on our constitutional democracy,” Reyes said.
While testifying in the case, Littlejohn said that he sincerely believed he was serving a cause by releasing the then-president’s tax documents, saying he thought taxpayers “deserved to know” what the wealthiest Americans were paying, or rather what they weren’t.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) read a victim impact statement at the hearing and asked the judge to sentence Littlejohn to the maximum sentence, saying he “abused his position of trust.
He also said that Littlejohn’s actions caused real “harm” to Americans, including Scott and his family.
“Donald Trump, Elon Musk ... all attacked for political purposes,” Scott said.
Reyes compared Littlejohn’s actions to some of those who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection that she sentenced.
“It cannot be open season on our elected officials,” Judge Reyes said.