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.
It sounds like Charles Edward Littlejohn is a fucking badass and overall rad dude worth celebrating. Additionally, if he gets the maximum sentence of 5 years, that will be drastically longer than many of the January 6th rioters. I can’t change the outcome for him, but I do wish him luck.
He needs to be pardoned or at least have his sentence commuted. But I highly doubt that Biden would do it.
Biden wouldn’t want to risk setting a precedent where his sides shortcomings might be also exposed.
It is in this way that the ruling class is bipartisan in upholding its privileges.
That seems like a rational take and I agree with you. Curious why the down votes? Because you’re alluding to Biden having shortcomings at all? Or because it’s perceived as a both sides are the same argument?
It’s hard to accept we’re living in such a tribal world. There’s no more nuance or middle ground in the majority it seems.
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.
He held the records up to the light knowing he would be burned by it. Truly the definition of a hero.
He knew he wasn’t above the law, he just believed the consequences were worth it. I hope he’s right.
Yup. Dude took one for the team.
What a fucking hero.
Absolute bullshit that this guy is getting the maximum sentence for releasing what Trump himself had said he was going to release years ago and what it’s just taken for granted that Presidents will always release (it should be a requirement for the job). MEANWHILE, the list of crimes that Trump has committed makes this seem like a petty crime in comparison and Trump is still walking free. Trump has literally admitted to seeing himself as above the law.
He’s not guaranteed to get the maximum sentence. The prosecutor just asked for the maximum. He hasn’t been sentenced yet.
This is probably one of the hardest things to do in the era we live in - go against our social engineering to sacrifice a relatively comfortable life in defiance of this moment.
Collectively, we’re frogs in the pot, especially as we move towards the end of this year and the worldwide elections as an accelerator to societal collapse. It’s so hard to know what to do that might make a difference today, at least this person tried, I hope society persists beyond this garbage moment and for long enough to allow history to look back on people like this as heros who at least tried.
Collectively, we’re frogs in the pot, especially as we move towards the end of this year and the worldwide elections as an accelerator to societal collapse.
Comparing us to frogs does a disservice to frogs. They tried to slowly boil frogs and the frogs jumped out.
We’re more like people sitting in a hot tub while people pee in it. When will we notice that the hot tub is mostly pee and get the fuck out?
Littlejohn… friend of Robinhood?
Why wasn’t he protected as a whistleblower? Or why isn’t Biden pardoning him?
A. Probably because he took the specifically to do this.
B. They don’t usually pardon someone before sentencing.
There’s often a limits to whistleblower protections, usually you’re only protected if you report it internally, and publishing private information is often not protected at all, and whenever there’s protections available for publishing it then it’s usually only protected if it’s limited to what’s necessary to inform the public about a sufficiently severe issue (like newsworthy major fraud).
It would be a pretty bad look for Biden to pardon him IMO. I think it would be a mistake for him to do so.
What did he whistle blow on? A whistle blower is blowing the whistle on their own company they work for for malfeasance. Leaking documents that are not tied to wrong doing by the IRS is not blowing the whistle.
I suspect he never believed he was above the law, but that the law was broken.
Good. Fuck Trump.
Lol you sound like a loser.
Your username is rare pepe collector
More today, in pointing out the obvious.
And you sound like someone who puts their political stooges on a pedestal.
Fuck Trump and fuck you too 👍
Everyone’s taxes should be public information. There are too many rich assholes hiding the fact that they don’t pay their fair share.
Sweden. It’s not for the current year but the previously declared incomes. Anyone can get them. Seems to work just fine.
How does making it public stop that problem? If anything that would probably just screw people over if potential employers could see exactly how much money you make. Let’s make it illegal for an employer to ask how much you currently make, but then let employers just query a DB of your income? That doesn’t make any sense.
Ok but you could also see how much they are paying other people which I feel like would even things out.
“We see you currently make 50k, so we’re gonna offer you 60k”
“I see you are paying everyone else 80k for the same job, so I won’t take any less”
That’s just going to drive down labor. And some titles have pay ranges of line 75k to 100k based on experience. And the employee is at a disadvantage since they don’t have the list of all employees to do the research themselves.
Well for starters you can spread awareness of how much the ultra rich steal. If you’re in the eroding middle class and see that you pay more taxes than the ultra rich you might be more incline to raise taxes on them.
If anything that would probably just screw people over if potential employers could see exactly how much money you make.
That actually goes both ways. That in a sense makes wages public which means the employers can’t screw over employees because most employees don’t know how much others make. And I don’t know how employers really benefit from it. If you’re in a position to demand more pay it doesn’t matter how much you currently make, what matters is how much they’re willing to pay to hire you. If they think less of you because of how much you make then you probably don’t want to work there anyway.
It doesn’t go both ways. That is why states like New York have banned employers from being able to ask current salary. And made it mandatory to post pay ranges on postings. And those ranges are huge.
You are right employees are better off knowing what others make, but once the employer knows what you make you are screwed. It can be a game of chicken where the employee loses. If current prospect employee makes 60k but asks for 90k, the employer can still just offer 75 or 80k assuming you will not be willing to walk away from a 15k raise.
Obviously, with a name like “Littlejohn,” he’s a good guy in league with Robin Hood and Friar Tuck and all the other Merry Men. In his defense, Trump did (repeatedly) promise to disclose his IRS tax returns to the public. The man only helped Trump keep a campaign promise. Littlejohn ought to get an award and an all-expense paid vacation at Mar-a-Lago!
Littlejohn just pulled a big john in my pants move.
Tax returns should be public anyways
The hero we need.
