(Washington) – A former IRS employee pleaded guilty Thursday to leaking the tax returns of a very senior official to the media in 2020, the Justice Department announced.
In its press release, the ministry did not mention the name of former President Donald Trump or the media concerned, but the facts and dates are consistent with what was published in September 2020 by The New York Times From the then-president’s tax returns.
Breaking a long tradition, the latter has always refused to publish his tax returns.
Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty to unauthorized disclosure of tax returns, and his sentence, up to five years in prison, will be set on Jan. 29, 2024, the department said.
“While working for the IRS, he stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking official (Public Official A),” the statement read.
The ministry added that on several occasions since August 2019, he had conveyed this information “to the media 1”, which “in September 2020 published a series of articles about public employee A income declarations.”
investigating in The New York Times In September 2020, he claimed that Donald Trump paid only $750 in federal taxes in 2016 and 2017, and none in 10 of the past 15 years, due in particular to large loss filings from his companies.
Then, in July and August 2020, Charles Littlejohn stole the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s richest people and turned them over to “2 media outlets that published more than 50 articles using the stolen data,” according to the press release.
In all likelihood, this is the investigative media outlet ProPublica, which in 2021 aired a series of documents about tax evasion practiced by billionaires.
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