A former IRS contractor used a private website to store secret tax return information he stole about former President Donald Trump and leaked it to The New York Times, court records show.
Charles Littlejohn, 38, plead He was found guilty on October 12 of stealing Trump information from the IRS and leaking it to The Times. He also stole the tax return information of thousands of wealthy Americans, including Ken Griffin, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and leaked it to ProPublica.
A court filing Sunday revealed how Littlejohn carried out one of the most serious security breaches in IRS history.Lawmakers and government regulators have repeatedly warn Safeguards are lax at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which processed 260 million tax returns last year. Littlejohn’s motive was not mentioned in the document.
To avoid detection, Littlejohn reportedly obtained Trump’s tax returns and other information in late 2018 by querying an IRS database using more “generic parameters” rather than directly searching the former president’s data. Archive.
He then uploaded the data to a personal private website he controlled, rather than downloading it to physical storage or using a remote storage site. This allowed him to “evade IRS protocols designed to detect and block large downloads or uploads to agency equipment or systems,” according to the document, which lays out the factual basis for his guilty plea.
That day, he used his personal computer to download data from a private website and stored it in multiple locations, including personal data storage devices such as his Apple iPod. In May 2019, he contacted The Times about leaking Trump’s tax information, which was disclosed between August and October of that year.
September 2020—weeks before Trump lost the election to Joe Biden—The Times publish The first of several stories revealed he paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and had not paid taxes in 10 of the past 15 years.
read more: Tax return thief who stole Trump, Griffin data pleads guilty
Documents show Littlejohn used similar methods, including a private website, to store data he stole on thousands of America’s wealthiest people and then leaked it to ProPublica. They include billionaires Griffin, Bezos and Musk.The news outlet stated in its report that series It released tax data spanning more than 15 years.
When uploading the data, he used two “virtual machines,” or “essentially simulated versions of physical computers,” the document said. After using the machines to steal data, he “immediately destroyed the machines.”
In September 2020, he contacted ProPublica to discuss the possibility of sharing data on wealthy taxpayers. He then anonymously mailed the data to ProPublica via a password-protected storage device.
Two months later, he handed the password to reporters there. ProPublica has published nearly 50 stories based on this data.
ProPublica reports that billionaires, including Bezos and Musk, paid little or no income tax in some years even as their wealth soared. It outlines tax strategies that the top 0.1% of Americans can adopt. Michael Bloomberg, a major shareholder of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP, was also included in the report.
Littlejohn pleaded guilty to a count that carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, but under his plea agreement he could face eight to 14 months in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for January 29.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes accepted Littlejohn’s guilty plea despite the objections of Trump’s lawyer Alina Haba, who spoke at the hearing and called the leak an “outrage” and a “serious violation.” ”. Haba asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence if the deal goes ahead.
Reyes said that while she saw no reason to reject Littlejohn’s plea, she agreed with Haba that it was “unacceptable” for people to take the law into their own hands and vowed there would be “serious consequences.”
Documents show Littlejohn worked as a contractor for the same consulting firm from 2008 to 2010, 2012 to 2013, and 2017 to 2021. The company has not yet been identified.
The case is United States v. Littlejohn, No. 23-cr-00343, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
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