A former IRS contractor who leaked the the tax returns of Donald Trump, Ken Griffin and others and leaked them to the media used a private website.
Charles Littlejohn, 38, who worked for a contractor rumored to be Booz Allen Hamilton (of Edward Snowden fame), stole tax return information on thousands of wealthy Americans, including Trump, Griffin, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and then leaked them to ProPublica.
In a Sunday court filing, his methods were revealed, Bloomberg Tax reports.
Weeks before then-President Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, the NY Times published the first of several stories revealing that Trump paid $750 in taxes between 2016 and 2017, and no taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years.
Trump also lost millions of dollars from his golf courses, "vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due" and that Trump earned $73 million abroad.
Combined, Trump initially paid almost $95 million in federal income taxes over the 18 years. He later managed to recoup most of that money, with interest, by applying for and receiving a $72.9 million tax refund, starting in 2010.
Littlejohn used a similar method to store data he stole on Griffin, Bezos and Musk – with ProPublica reporting that the tax data spanned more than 15 years.
Littlejohn pleaded guilty to a single charge that carries a prison term of up to five years, however he'll likely only face eight to 14 months, according to his plea deal. He will be sentenced on Jan. 29. Trump attorney Alina Habba called the leak an "atrocity" and an "egregious breach," and asked US District Judge Ana Reyes to impose the maximum prison term if the plea deal went forward.
Reyes agreed with Habba that it was "unacceptable" for people to take the law into their own hands, and vowed to impose "severe consequences." (ha).
As Bloomberg notes, "Littlejohn worked as a contractor for the same consulting firm from 2008 to 2010, 2012 to 2013, and 2017 to 2021, according to the filing. The firm wasn’t identified."
Looks like Jesse Watters has some idea.