According to the U.S. Justice Department, former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) contractor Charles Littlejohn took his job with the tax agency purpose of leaking then-President Donald Trump’s tax information.
The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2017 Littlejohn reapplied for a job as a private contractor handling tasks with the IRS.
The same report states that Littlejohn “worked intermittently” in a similar role from 2008 through 2013.
Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors said Littlejohn made a sophisticated plan to access Trump’s tax information because he viewed Trump as a “threat to democracy.”
Littlejohn reportedly searched for and downloaded the tax information of thousands of America’s most wealthy people.
An October press release by the DOJ claimed Littlejohn used “broad search parameters designed to conceal the true purpose of his queries.”
Littlejohn managed to download tax information from Trump and others off of the IRS database to external devices he owned.
Then Littlejohn provided Trump’s tax return information to an unspecified news outlet, according to the DOJ. It is widely known that Littlejohn contacted The New York Times with Trump’s tax returns, as reported in a recent Wall Street Journal article.
Last October Littlejohn pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax information.
On Tuesday, the DOJ recommended that Littlejohn face a five-year prison sentence, which is the maximum amount of time for his crime.
Littlejohn will be sentenced on January 29.
