IRS consultant pleads guilty in massive leak of wealthy Americans’ tax returns

News@lemmy.world – 313 points – 1 years ago

IRS consultant pleads guilty in massive leak of wealthy Americans' tax returns

An IRS contractor pled guilty Thursday to leaking the private tax information of former President Donald Trump and thousands of other wealthy Americans to the news media.

Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., faces a maximum of five years in prison, the Department of Justice said. Sentencing is slated for late January.

Free him and audit everyone

I think the paperwork to start that process is here - https://www.justice.gov/pardon/apply-pardon

Incidentally, they might try to bullshit their way out of a direct answer by saying some misinformation about how "there is a five-year waiting period before a person can apply for pardon," but just remind them that's not how it worked for Michael Flynn and a whole bunch of other people under the last administration. Whether or not this gets done comes down solely to the President's willingness to order it.

Find me the petition and I'll sign it

Put me on the jury and I'll nullify it

The fact that this guy is going to jail by January but Trump isn't even close, means something is very wrong with our justice system.

He took a plea deal so they don't have to spend time bringing the case to trial.

He took the plea deal probably because he can’t afford a lengthy legal battle, decline to pay his lawyers, getting court dates shifted, appointing his own judge,… There is an entirely separate US justice system for the rich and powerful.

Or there might have been more than enough evidence to convict him but the prosecutor offered him a deal with less time served in exchange for making the process easier on the courts.

You can fight a case through trial but if you've got bad facts you've wasted your time and money (unless you've got a PD) plus might just end up serving a greater sentence.

That's not to say that having the capacity to afford serval attorneys on retainer isn't beneficial, just that there is such a thing as a good plea deal when you're stuck with bad facts.

Or the cops told him that they had plenty of evidence to convict, scared him with a lengthy prison sentence, and he chose a plea deal because he viewed it as exactly that, a deal for a lesser punishment.

We should treat this man like the subway passengers treated Spider-Man after he saved their lives

Guilty of being moral and ethical. Billionaires should not exist.

Where's the gofundme

For real. I'll fund the fuck out of this dude. We need more people like him that are willing to do the right thing.

Seriously, I'll sign any petition or donate to any gofundme for this guy.