- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
The man who stole and leaked former President Donald Trump and thousands of other’s tax records has been sentenced to five years in prison.
In October, Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized disclosures of income tax returns. According to his plea agreement, he stole Trump’s tax returns along with the tax data of “thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people,” while working for a consulting firm with contracts with the Internal Revenue Service.
Littlejohn leaked the information to two news outlets and deleted the documents from his IRS-assigned laptop before returning it and covered the rest of his digital tracks by deleting places where he initially stored the information.
Judge Ana Reyes highlighted the gravity of the crime, saying multiple times that it amounted to an attack against the US and its legal foundation.
There is a law which requires the IRS to turn over tax records for high government officials when asked by Congress, and Trump ordered his head of the IRS to ignore the orders.
Now admittedly this is not the same as being public, but I don’t think that there are rules preventing Congress from publishing this information once received, so it is in practice public.
Plus Trump promised to publish his tax returns, so basically he should be thanking this patriot for saving him the trouble.
The guy is a government employee, but he’s not Congress. In fact, we should be able to trust that the government won’t publish our records to the public because some guy who works there feels like it.
You allow it in this case, who knows whose records get leaked next time?
You’re correct, the leaker is not Congress. Congress was denied the ability to see the President’s returns because President Trump and his subordinate broke the law and refused to supply his returns to Congress when asked.
This law does not apply to everyone, just high government officials. I’m the worst case anyone in a high position in the US government would be forced to have financial transparency, and I’m okay with that.
I’m saying for all the people defending the leaker, that wasn’t the correct way to do it. Sue in court and see what comes out of it.