House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith urged a federal judge to throw the book at a left-wing IRS consultant who leaked the tax returns of former President Donald Trump and thousands of other private citizens, saying a lenient sentence would encourage similar crimes.
“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,” the Missouri Republican said in a statement Wednesday to Breitbart.
In October, Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty to one count of illegally stealing tax return information and disclosing it to the media from 2018 to 2020 while working as an IRS consultant.
“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,” Smith told Breitbart.
“I hope the court imposes a sentence that sends a strong signal that the consequences for this type of action are severe,” the congressman said.
On Tuesday, Smith and the 24 other Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee urged Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to impose the maximum penalty of five years in jail for Littlejohn’s crime.
In their letter to the appointee of President Joe Biden, the Republicans also slammed the Justice Department for charging Littlejohn with just one count of illegal disclosure of private tax information even though he admitted he had committed two such violations and also obstructed a federal investigation.
“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 when the facts clearly warrant additional charges,” the lawmakers wrote.
“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.”
Should Littlejohn get the maximum sentence?
The Republicans underscored that 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 The New York Times; and also stealing private tax information associated with thousands of individuals and disclosing this information to ProPublica.”
The lawmakers said while they wished prosecutors had charged the defendant with multiple counts, the judge could rectify this miscarriage of justice by imposing the maximum penalty to reflect the seriousness of the crimes and to deter similar lawlessness.
In a farcical irony, Littlejohn’s lawyers argued for leniency, claiming their client broke federal laws because he was motivated by a sense of duty to the American people.
In their sentencing memo to the judge last week, defense attorneys admitted Littlejohn was alarmed when Trump was elected in 2017 and specifically sought a job as an IRS consultant in order to “access the President’s tax returns if given the opportunity.”
However, they claim “he committed this offense out of a deep, moral belief that the American people had a right to know the information and sharing it was the only way to effect change.”
This is a disturbing illustration of the twisted psychosis of people with Trump Derangement Syndrome: Their hatred of the 45th president causes some to commit crimes even if it destroys their own lives.
Meanwhile, Republicans blasted Littlejohn as a warped, white-collar vigilante who abused his IRS position and breached the public trust.
“Mr. Littlejohn took the law into his own hands and decided he knew what was best,” they wrote in their letter to the judge. “Mr.Littlejohn’s actions showed disdain for the rule of law and American confidence in our voluntary tax system.”
“He acted with an apparent political motivation and perhaps with an intent to impact a Presidential election,” they added. “So that similar conduct is deterred in the future, we respectfully ask that you sentence Mr. Littlejohn to the maximum sentence of five years.”
Let’s hope the judge agrees when he is sentenced on Monday.
