From U.S. v. Littlejohn, decided today by D.C. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, joined by Judges Neomi Rao and Judith Rogers:
In 2017, Charles Littlejohn obtained a job as a consultant to the Internal Revenue Service so that he could steal and leak the tax returns of President Donald Trump. He says he "felt that the American people should have the opportunity to see the tax returns of the sitting president before they decided on how they were going to vote." … Two years into his elaborate scheme, in 2019, Littlejohn gave President Trump's tax return and return information to a reporter for the New York Times…. [J[ust weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Times began publishing articles based on what Littlejohn had stolen.
That was, however, only one of Littlejohn's grand plans. He says he "also felt that taxpayers as a whole deserved to know just how easy it was for the wealthiest among us to avoid paying into our system." So he used his "skills to systematically violate the privacy of thousands of innocent people" by stealing the tax returns and return information of about 600 entities and about 7,600 of the wealthiest Americans. He then leaked what he stole to ProPublica, which used data regarding at least 152 of his victims in about 50 articles.
As a result of Littlejohn's crime, his victims lost business. They were disparaged countless times. And their families were physically threatened. See A 199–201 (letters on behalf of victims who described "great distress" to "me and my family"; "reputational damage"; "economic impact"; "patently false assertions about the tax payer's tax compliance"; personal "threat[s]" to "our family"; "disparage[ment] countless times"; "lost business"; "reputational damage"; putting "our family's safety" in "jeopard[y]"; "very real threats"; "mental, emotional, and reputational consequences").
To this day, ProPublica is sitting on the private, as-yet-unpublished data of other taxpayers stolen by Littlejohn. But those taxpayers continue to fear that ProPublica will publish their data in the future….
In 2023, the Government and Littlejohn notified the district court that he intended to plead guilty to one count of disclosing without authorization tax returns and return information in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7213(a)(1).
A day before Littlejohn's plea hearing, the district court held an off-the-record meeting in chambers with counsel for the Government and Littlejohn. The court said it was "perplexed" by the Government's decision not to charge Littlejohn with "multiple charges carrying a much higher possible sentence." Littlejohn's counsel did not object to anything about the meeting.
After Littlejohn pleaded guilty, the Government filed a memorandum arguing for the maximum sentence—five years in prison. In response, the district court emailed counsel for the Government and Littlejohn, again without objection, to request that they prepare to address whether it is "per se unreasonable to impose a sentence of a maximum term, outside the guidelines, to a defendant that pled guilty, cooperated with the Government, and accepts responsibility." The court said it had "not made a sentencing decision and will of course hear all argument on the appropriate sentence, including the appropriate impact of Mr. Littlejohn's cooperation and acceptance of responsibility."
In 2024, at the start of Littlejohn's sentencing hearing, the district court told him, "I know that this may well be the worst morning of your life or one of them. And I want you to know that I know that and I'm sympathetic to it." The court added:
I wish more than you can possibly know that we were meeting under different circumstances, because I have read the 29 letters from your friends and family. And they uniformly speak to a person of immense intelligence, deep caring, and unwavering loyalty. And I think anyone who has read those letters knows that to call you a friend is a privilege.
The court then continued to address Littlejohn directly and said, "I want you to know that I have studied and thought and struggled deeply about your sentence. And there have been very few days since I took your plea that I have not thought about your sentence in some way." The court circled back to its belief that Littlejohn had "repeatedly answered the call to help others" and added that his "actions were guided, however misguided the thought was, by a genuine belief of doing the right thing." But the court also said that, "whatever the motivation," Littlejohn had "target[ed] the sitting President of the United States," which "was an attack on our constitutional democracy." So the court intended to impose a sentence "with a firmness of purpose that such an attack demands."
