A former Internal Revenue Service contractor, who leaked tax information about Donald Trump and other wealthy individuals to news organizations, got his job to intentionally to spread the confidential records, according to Justice Department prosecutors.

Charles Edward Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, pleaded guilty in October to unauthorized disclosure of tax return and return information. U.S. District Judge Ana Reye scheduled sentencing for Jan. 29. Prosecutors recommended Tuesday he receive the maximum sentence of five years in prison.

“After applying to work as an IRS consultant with the intention of accessing and disclosing tax returns, Defendant weaponized his access to unmasked taxpayer data to further his own personal, political agenda, believing that he was above the law,” wrote prosecutors Corey Amundson, chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, Jennifer Clarke and Jonathan Jacobson.

  • diffcalculus@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    He’s getting down voted because most people in this thread are foaming at the mouth.

    I hate trump as much as the next guy. What this guy did, tho, is currently against the law. Should the law be changed? Should he have gone through a whistle blower process? Questions to be asked.

    But as of today, you can’t purposely get a job at the IRS to leak information that the IRS wasn’t ready/allowed to release. Full stop.

    The folks arguing here that he should be pardoned or who are enraged that he is even being charged are presenting childish arguments. There’s a theme on Lemmy that I’ve noticed. Tribalism is strong as fuck.