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.
You are looking at this completely backwards. Civil disobedience is absolutely necessary to help create just laws. Do not confuse civil disobedience and vigilantism.
Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law.
- Martin Luther King Jr. [Source]
This wasn’t an unjust law though. No one wants the IRS publicizing their tax return details. It happened to a guy you don’t like, but that doesn’t make the action a good thing.
The injustice I see this as highlighting is not the existence of a law preventing the disclosure of confidential tax information, but the lack of a law requiring the President to disclose their tax information.
Presidents releasing their tax returns has been a historical precedent, but has not been codified into law. Trump promised to release his tax returns but then refused.
