House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and committee Republicans called for the leaker of former President Donald Trump’s taxes to face the maximum penalty, Breitbart News can exclusively reveal.
Smith and the House Republicans wrote to Judge Ana Reyes, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The letter (see below) was obtained by Breitbart News.
The Ways and Means Committee Chairman said in a statement to Breitbart the maximum penalty is just the first step in the right direction.
“The prosecution of Charles Edward Littlejohn for illegally leaking President Trump’s tax returns to ProPublica and the New York Times will fail to deter future IRS leakers unless the sentence imposed in this case sends a strong message to other would-be criminals. Mr. Littlejohn executed a plan over many years to seek out a position with the IRS for the purpose of exposing the private information of Americans to further his political agenda. I hope the court imposes a sentence that sends a strong signal that the consequences for this type of action are severe,” Smith explained.
Letter to Court on ProPublica Sentencing by Breitbart News on Scribd
In September 2020, Trump’s confidential tax information was leaked to the New York Times.
In September 2023 the Justice Department charged Charles Littlejohn with one count of unauthorized disclosure of private tax information, even though he made two separate disclosures of thousands of Americans’ private tax information to news organizations and reportedly admitted to obstruction of justice in his plea agreement.
The lawmakers contended that the sentence for Charles Littlejohn should reflect the seriousness of the offense and they also worry that the Justice Department has reduced the number of crimes:
But the Committee cannot accomplish this alone. As the Court knows, some of the Section 3553(a) factors it must consider are “the need for the sentence imposed . . . to reflect the seriousness of the offense [and] to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2). Individuals who may be inclined to take the law into their own hands, as Mr. Littlejohn did, must know that they will be caught and that they will face severe consequences. We worry that a sentence of only 8 to 14 months does not comport with the seriousness of the crimes committed and we are concerned that a sentence in that range will fail to have the deterrent effect needed to prevent such a theft and disclosure from happening again. Below we describe some of the reasons why we think this is the case. [Emphasis added]
First, we are concerned about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) determination to plead Mr. Littlejohn to a single count of unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information[1] when the facts clearly warrant additional charges. Given that Mr. Littlejohn admitted to not only obstructing the DOJ’s investigation, but also to making multiple distinct illegal disclosures of taxpayer information, a plea to one count of unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information appears insufficient on its face. According to the factual proffer in support of the plea, Mr. Littlejohn admitted to committing two separate acts related to misappropriation of taxpayer information: stealing and disclosing private tax information associated with former President Donald J. Trump to TheNew York Times; and also stealing private tax information associated with thousands of individuals and disclosing this information to ProPublica.[2] Mr. Littlejohn not only admitted to committing these two separate acts, but he also acknowledged as part of his plea agreement that he obstructed the DOJ’s investigation into the matter.[3] [Emphasis added]
“While we wish that prosecutors had pleaded him to additional counts, you still can impose a more serious sentence than the anticipated 8-to-14-month guideline range. In our view, the seriousness of the crimes and the context surrounding them justify an upward variance. So that similar conduct is deterred in the future, we respectfully ask that you sentence Mr. Littlejohn to the maximum sentence of five years,” Smith and the lawmakers concluded in their letter.
“While the Biden Administration has expressed little interest in this massive injustice, my colleagues and I on the Ways and Means Committee and in Congress are doing everything in our power to ensure similar leaks do not happen again. We must work to restore the rule of law. Sentencing Littlejohn to the maximum extent possible is a first step in the right direction,” Smith concluded in his statement to Breitbart News.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.