Former IRS consultant Charles Littlejohn received a five-year prison sentence for leaking tax records, including those of former President Donald Trump, to The New York Times.
The judge, Ana Reyes, emphasized the severity of his actions, describing them as an attack on constitutional democracy.
Prosecutors highlighted the unprecedented scale of the disclosures, urging the maximum statutory sentence due to the significant impact on over a thousand individuals and entities.
“What you did in targeting the sitting president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy,” Reyes said.
Littlejohn accessed and leaked tax information from an IRS database, evading protocols to prevent large downloads.
“The scope and scale of defendant’s unlawful disclosures appear to be unparalleled in the IRS’s history,” prosecutors wrote.
“There simply is no precedent for a case involving the disclosure of tax return and return information associated with ‘over a thousand’ individuals and entities.”
The stolen data was used by news organizations, including The New York Times and ProPublica, to publish articles about various high-profile figures’ tax returns.
Littlejohn expressed regret during his sentencing, citing a misguided belief in the importance of informed decision-making for the country.
