He Leaked Trump’s Tax Returns. Will Biden Protect Him?

Earlier this month, a group of professors from the normally stodgy world of tax law wrote to President Joe Biden calling on him to free the IRS contractor who leaked the tax returns of Donald Trump and thousands of millionaires and billionaires.

Charles Littlejohn’s five-year sentence was six times the recommended maximum, the professors said, despite the fact that Littlejohn’s disclosures helped shed light on a broken tax system that allows Warren Buffett to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.

With Biden winding down his time in office, Littlejohn’s advocates, including tax code reformers from the groups Revolving Door Project and Patriotic Millionaires, are worried for the incarcerated IRS consultant. They’re calling on Biden to commute Littlejohn’s sentence before it is too late and he is forced to spend Trump’s second term in prison at risk of retribution.

“Trump has already promised to pardon January 6 insurrectionists who are convicted,” said Kenny Stancil, a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project. “It would be a perversion of justice if they walk free while Littlejohn spends over four more years in prison.”

Calls for Clemency

Stancil’s Revolving Door Project, Patriotic Millionaires, and the group of tax professors led by Reuven Avi-Yonah of the University of Michigan — who has called Littlejohn a “public hero”— are leading the charge for clemency.

The groups have not called on Biden to pardon Littlejohn, noting that he pleaded guilty, but they did emphasize the civic-minded purpose behind his leaks.

For years before Littlejohn’s leak, and in breaking with decades of precedent, Trump had refused to release his tax returns to the public.

In response, Littlejohn gave the New York Times years of Trump’s tax returns, which revealed in the run-up to the 2020 election that the real estate developer, entertainer, and politician had paid nothing or next to nothing in federal taxes for years.

After those leaks, he handed ProPublica the tax documents of thousands of the super-rich, which showed how billionaires such as Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer took advantage of tax breaks to avoid paying millions of dollars to the government.

Ballmer, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos — Littlejohn leaked all their returns, giving the public previously unimaginable insight into how the rich approach paying their taxes. Throughout the process, Littlejohn sought assurances from the news outlets that they would handle the files with care. 

“Littlejohn is a whistleblower, who responsibly disclosed information of interest to the public to reputable news organizations,” Stancil said. “He had nothing to gain personally from this. He was acting in the public interest.”

“He had nothing to gain personally from this. He was acting in the public interest.”

Littlejohn was able to access wealthy Americans’ tax files as a consultant for the IRS. While he took steps to avoid detection, he quickly pleaded guilty after federal investigators began zeroing in on him. That type of cooperation, along with his spotless record, would normally go a long way toward lenient sentencing.

Instead, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in January went five times above the recommended maximum 10-month term in federal guidelines to hand Littlejohn the same 60-month sentence recommended by federal prosecutors — the maximum allowable under the law.

Reyes, a Biden appointee, said that Littlejohn’s actions posed a similar threat as the January 6 rioters. By that point, she had already sentenced seven people involved in the events of that day, handing none of them prison sentences, according to an Intercept database. (She has since sentenced three men to shorter prison terms than Littlejohn.)

“What you did in attacking the sitting president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy,” Reyes said, according to CNN. “We’re talking about someone who … pulled off the biggest heist in IRS history.”

Political Pressure

Littlejohn’s supporters believe he may have fallen victim to a political pressure campaign.

Days before sentencing, every Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the judge in his case, asking her to “throw the book” at Littlejohn, in the words of a press release.

Among the victims of the leak was Sen. Rick Scott, the Florida Republican who grew wealthy leading a health care company that defrauded the U.S. government.

Scott said at sentencing that the people who had their taxes leaked were “attacked for political purposes” and accused the Justice Department of going easy on Littlejohn.

“He got the sentence because the aggrieved parties were the billionaires.”

Littlejohn’s supporters argue that Scott had it backwards: Littlejohn received a far greater sentence than people convicted under the same statute of leaking information for personal gain — or of multimillionaires convicted of tax evasion.

“There’s no way, in my mind, that if Littlejohn had leaked the IRS information of a bunch of bartenders and hairstylists who hadn’t been reporting tip income, he wouldn’t have gotten six times the guideline sentence for that,” said Bob Lord, senior vice president for tax policy at Patriotic Millionaires. “He got the sentence because the aggrieved parties were the billionaires.”

Lord and other Littlejohn supporters are acting now because they believe the window may be closing for an early release.

Littlejohn, who reported to prison in May, is pursuing an appeal that could lower his sentence. Outside groups, however, are pitching Biden on the commutation request, with a hope that the president will send Littlejohn home before Trump takes office.

It is unclear whether Biden is considering such a step. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Stancil, of the Revolving Door Project, pointed out that Biden has reportedly been mulling preemptive pardons for political figures who could face retribution from Trump. Littlejohn could face similar threats in prison, he said.

“If Biden is considering these anticipatory actions,” Stancil said, “we think that Charles Littlejohn fits into that category of people who are at risk of potential retribution.”

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