By PAUL SPERRY | REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS
The Biden administration is formally considering commuting the sentence of the convicted felon who stole and leaked incoming President Trump’s tax records along with those of thousands of other taxpayers, in the biggest tax data heist in U.S. history.
A search of the Justice Department’s pardon database reveals Charles Edward Littlejohn — who just began his five-year sentence in May — has been assigned a clemency case number. It says a petition for “commutation of sentence” was recently sought and is “pending.”
A number of liberal watchdog groups, including Revolving Door Project and Patriotic Millionaires, have been lobbying President Biden to free Littlejohn from prison because they believe his leaks provided a “public service.” They argue he is a “selfless defender of tax fairness” for exposing how Trump and other wealthy Americans, including billionaires Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Bloomberg, and Jeff Bezos, take advantage of tax breaks to reduce their tax bills. Littlejohn leaked the sensitive IRS data to the New York Times and the liberal news site ProPublica, which published them in a series of articles before and after the 2020 election.
Biden would have to make the decision before he leaves office on Jan. 20. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The pending clemency comes as Biden has issued a record number of controversial pardons and commutations, including ones for his son, Hunter Biden, for tax evasion and firearms violations.
National Legal and Policy Center counsel Paul Kamenar doubts Biden will grant the request, “especially since he already pardoned Hunter on tax charges. This would further undermine his support of the rule of law.” He added that it would also overrule the sentencing meted out by a Democratic judge he appointed.
“DOJ already let him [Littlejohn] off with a slap on the wrist by allowing him to plead guilty to just a single felony count for reportedly leaking thousands of Americans’ tax returns, ” said former Senate Judiciary Committee chief investigative counsel Jason Foster, who co-founded Empower Oversight, a Washington watchdog group. “If President Biden commuted his sentence, it’d be like letting him off the hook all over again.”
Calls to release Littlejohn were led by University of Michigan tax professor Reuven Avi-Yonah. In a letter to the president last month, petitioners argued the leaker should be offered leniency because he disclosed “highly relevant information to the voting public.” Though they acknowledged the privacy concerns of such a breach, they said it nonetheless was important to expose “how little tax” the “super-rich” pay.
“Going after Mr. Littlejohn creates the perception that the system protects the interests of the super-rich taxpayers whose returns he leaked,” they rationalized in their four-page letter to Biden. They added that his five-year sentence was “particularly harsh.”
Disclosing tax returns is a crime, and after Littlejohn pleaded guilty to a felony, he was sentenced to the maximum punishment under the law by Democratic judge Ana Reyes, who was appointed to the federal bench by Biden.
Federal records show Avi-Yonah, who has called Littlejohn a “public hero,” is a Democrat who has donated to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He has advocated for soaking the rich to keep “inequality in check.” Littlejohn has also given to Democrats and was raised in an affluent Democrat household.
The 39-year-old Littlejohn, who goes by “Chaz,” pilfered the trove of private tax returns while working for the IRS as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton, a Washington consulting firm with deep ties to Democrats. RealClearInvestigations was the first to report his connection to Booz Allen, which last summer received a lucrative new contract from the IRS in spite of the massive breach.
The IRS recently sent letters to the thousands of victims of Littlejohn’s theft, noting the breach of their confidential tax files was unacceptable but that the full scope of what he disclosed is still unknown. The IRS has already settled one lawsuit filed by billionaire Kenneth Griffin. Other victims are suing Booz Allen for its failure to monitor Littlejohn while he worked at the IRS.
Supporters of Littlejohn, most of whom are anti-Trump voters, have set up a GoFundMe pagethat has raised nearly $60,000 to help pay for his legal defense.
Littlejohn is incarcerated at the federal prison in Marion, Ill. He is pursuing an appeal that could lower his sentence.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire. Paul Sperry is an investigative reporter for RealClearInvestigations. He is also a longtime media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Sperry was previously the Washington bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily, and his work has appeared in the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Houston Chronicle, among other major publications.
A president rewarding criminal activity he directly benefits from is an excellent precedent to set. You have to love the reasoning here. Because some level of good was achieved by breaking the law, the criminal should be go free. In other words. The criminal act was justified because there was a perceived benefit. I don’t believe prehistoric humans were this base.
Leakers gonna leak. Foul deeds will rise to Men’s eyes though all the Swamp dwellers, including the new pack led by Trump, try to o’erwhelm them. A very just pardon for another patriot.
Nothing less than general amnesty for the J6 patriots and tourist and picnickers (Trump promised)!
Pardon the hero Julian Assange who pulled back the curtain to reveal the lies of the “pretty good club”.
WOW Booz Allen Hamilton be damned! ;(
There is a huge difference between the “filthy rich” using tax “loopholes” using a very complicated tax structure designed by politicians to benefit their contributors and lucrative support they use to get elected(George Soros comes to mind) and then we have people like Hunter Biden to simply lies and cheats his way through criminal tax evasion and simply gets pardoned by the “BIG GUY”.
The scumbag that released personal information should simply be hung for his deliberate actions and people like Hunter should be in jail but not when the Big Guy is in power.
He must protect the family business He never once spoke of while president or vice president which is a complete lie he got caught at many times.
Despite all the legal loopholes put in place by billionaires, no, sorry -Put in place by politicians, the same ones telling us rich people don’t pay much in taxes, Elon Musk wins the prize for most taxes paid – over 11 billion in 2021 alone is documented. And he still makes this huge donation today.
Littlejohn did no service to the public. He’s no Robinhood. He was/is the poop in the brownies that ruins the pan for all of us. Now he does his time on the taxpayers’ dime, ironically!
“Calls to release Littlejohn were led by University of Michigan tax professor Reuven Avi-Yonah. In a letter to the president last month, petitioners argued the leaker should be offered leniency because he disclosed “highly relevant information to the voting public.” Though they acknowledged the privacy concerns of such a breach, they said it nonetheless was important to expose “how little tax” the “super-rich” pay.”
Now that’s just a ridiculous way to go about it as it breaks laws. All they had to really do was create a computer model using current tax codes and accounting methods (like they do with climate change) in order to demonstrate how little super rich people might pay. That is how we do science these days, isn’t it?
Sounds good.
Let’s put that individual back into their position, and have the leak the tax records of prominent democrats. See how they like it.
Let him loose. Of course he will need to find another country to live in. Iran perhaps.
What a weird time we live in. Just because you’re pissed off that a person plays by the tax laws in place doesn’t give you the right to expose their personal information. This guy doesn’t deserve anything but what his conviction and sentence deems.
When did leakers become heroes? Probably when unnamed sources became the basis of major news stories.
Next time you realize your privacy is slipping further away recall how much FJB valued your privacy.