Charles Littlejohn Case: Guilty Plea, Sentence, and Appeal

The Charles Littlejohn case is the federal criminal prosecution of a former IRS contractor who stole and leaked the tax return information of Donald Trump and thousands of the wealthiest Americans to the New York Times and ProPublica, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to a single felony count of unauthorized disclosure of tax return information, and was sentenced in January 2024 to five years in federal prison, the statutory maximum. His appeal is pending before the D.C. Circuit.

What Littlejohn Did

Littlejohn carried out two separate sets of disclosures over roughly a year. Between August and October 2019, he stole the tax return information of a figure identified in court papers as “Public Official A,” widely understood to be Donald Trump, and provided it to the New York Times.¹ In 2020, the Times reported that Trump had paid $750 in federal income tax the year he entered the White House and no income tax in some earlier years.²

In July and August 2020, he stole tax records for thousands of the country’s wealthiest individuals, with data spanning more than 15 years. In September 2020, he anonymously mailed a password-protected storage device to ProPublica and later gave a reporter the password.³ The records covered figures including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Ken Griffin, Michael Bloomberg, and Senator Rick Scott.⁴ Beginning in June 2021, ProPublica published the “Secret IRS Files,” a series of nearly 50 articles drawn from the leaked material. Between the two outlets, more than 50 published articles relied on Littlejohn’s disclosures.⁵

How He Got Access

Littlejohn had worked at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton on and off between 2008 and 2013, mostly on IRS contracts, before resigning. Prosecutors said he returned to government contracting in September 2017 for a specific purpose: to reach Trump’s tax returns, whom he viewed as a “threat to democracy.” He applied to two consulting firms seeking a project that would give him that access. Booz Allen rehired him, and by February 2018 he was assigned to an IRS contract that opened taxpayer data to him.⁶

Scale of the Breach

Early accounts described “thousands” of victims. By 2024, the IRS put the number at roughly 406,000 taxpayers, about 89 percent of them business entities. In August 2024, the Treasury Department formally reported the incident as a “major incident” to the Senate Finance Committee because personally identifiable information for more than 100,000 taxpayers was involved.⁷ Judge Ana C. Reyes later called the scope “unparalleled in the IRS’s history.”

The Guilty Plea

On October 12, 2023, Littlejohn pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax return and return information, a felony under 26 U.S.C. § 7213.⁸ He admitted stealing the records, providing them to the two news organizations, and obstructing the investigation by deleting and destroying evidence of his disclosures.¹ The statute carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine per count.⁹

The Five-Year Sentence

The federal sentencing guidelines, as calculated after a 2023 amendment, recommended only 4 to 10 months for the single count. Prosecutors asked for the full 60 months, arguing that the guideline range was “flatly inconsistent with the gravity of the offense.” Their memo cited the multi-year planning, Littlejohn’s use of virtual machines and personal hardware to evade detection, the unprecedented scale of the breach, and the need to deter future ideologically motivated leaks of taxpayer data.¹⁰

On January 29, 2024, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes imposed the statutory maximum: 60 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $5,000 fine.¹ From the bench, Reyes told Littlejohn: “You have caused and have risked causing immense harm to thousands of Americans.” Addressing the Trump disclosure, she said, “What you did in targeting a sitting president of the United States is an attack on our constitutional democracy. It cannot be open season on our elected officials.” She compared his conduct to cases she had handled from the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.¹¹

Reyes also pressed the Justice Department on its charging decision, asking, “Someone can steal thousands and thousands and thousands of taxpayers’ information, and the only count that the government could possibly bring is a disclosure count?” She said she was confident more charges could have been pursued.¹²

Littlejohn began serving the sentence on May 1, 2024.

The Appeal

On February 12, 2024, Littlejohn filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Case No. 24-3019).¹ His April 2025 brief argued the sentence was both procedurally and substantively unreasonable and asked that the case be sent back for resentencing before a different judge. The defense claimed Reyes had “predetermined” the sentence before the hearing, held off-the-record meetings with the parties, solicited authority to impose the maximum by email, and received an ex parte letter from Congress without docketing it.¹³

In its July 2025 response, the government said the sentencing process was proper and that Reyes had explicitly written to the parties, “I have not yet made a sentencing decision.” Prosecutors defended the upward variance on the aggravating factors not captured by the guidelines, including the ideological motivation, the targeting of the President, and the multi-year sophistication of the scheme.¹³

Booz Allen Hamilton sought in July 2025 to file an amicus brief arguing the five-year sentence was actually “insufficient for the severity of his crimes.” The D.C. Circuit denied that motion in August 2025.¹⁴ Oral argument took place on November 4, 2025, before Judges Neomi Rao and Justin Walker. Reporting from the courtroom described the panel as “skeptical” of Littlejohn’s arguments and suggested the sentencing judge “did nothing wrong.”¹⁵ As of mid-2026, no ruling had been issued.

Fallout for Booz Allen and the IRS

Booz Allen Hamilton cooperated with the investigation and was thanked publicly by the Justice Department. The firm said Littlejohn’s crimes occurred entirely on government-controlled systems, that it had no knowledge of his intentions, and that the IRS, not Booz Allen, controlled his level of access.¹⁶

On January 26, 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the cancellation of all 31 Treasury contracts with Booz Allen, worth $21 million in total obligations and $4.8 million in annual spending. Bessent said the firm “failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service.”¹⁷ Booz Allen said it was “surprised,” repeating that the breach occurred on government systems and that it stores no taxpayer data on its own networks.¹⁸

The IRS, using Inflation Reduction Act funding, tightened access controls on its most sensitive data sets, strengthened firewalls and monitoring, deployed new security tools, reduced the use of removable media, added email and printer controls, and improved retention of data-access logs. Starting in April 2024, the agency began sending Letter 6613-A to affected taxpayers, explaining that their information had been unlawfully disclosed between 2018 and 2020, describing identity theft risks, and advising them to monitor their IRS transcripts. The IRS said it had “not seen any indication” the disclosed data had been used for identity theft or fraud and that the government had recovered the material in Littlejohn’s possession.¹⁹ About 12,200 letters came back undeliverable, prompting an address-correction effort that included a separate process for 515 taxpayers with international addresses.⁷

Congress moved on penalties as well. The House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Taxpayer Data Protection Act (H.R. 8292) by a 40-1 vote. The bill would raise the maximum fine from $5,000 to $250,000, lift maximum imprisonment from five years to ten, and treat each affected taxpayer as a separate violation.²⁰ In March 2025, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan wrote to Littlejohn’s counsel requesting his testimony, saying he wanted to investigate the full scope of the theft and consider reforms to DOJ plea procedures and the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. The committee offered to coordinate with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to arrange the appearance.⁵

1
U.S. Department of Justice. United States v. Charles Littlejohn
2
NPR. Ex-IRS Contractor Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for Leaking Trump’s Tax Records
3
Fortune. Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk Tax Leak
4
Courthouse News Service. Ex-IRS Contractor Who Leaked Tax Returns of Trump and Richest Americans Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison
5
House Judiciary Committee. Judiciary Committee Seeks Testimony From Trump Tax Return Leaker
6
Zetter Zero Day. Booz Allen Tech Contractor Took IRS Job Specifically to Leak Trump’s Tax Records
7
U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. IRS Response to the Data Breach
8
U.S. Department of Justice. IRS Contractor Pleads Guilty to Disclosing Tax Return Information to News Organizations
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S.C. § 7213
10
Courthouse News Service. Government Sentencing Memorandum
11
6abc. IRS Contractor Sentenced Over Donald Trump Taxes
12
Politico Pro. Judge Presses DOJ on Charging Trump Tax Leaker
13
CourtListener. United States v. Charles Littlejohn Oral Argument
14
CourtListener. United States v. Charles Littlejohn Docket
15
Law360. DC Circuit Skeptical of IRS Data Leaker’s Qualms About Judge
16
Booz Allen Hamilton. Statement on Unauthorized Disclosure of Tax Returns
17
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury Secretary Bessent Announces Cancellation of Booz Allen Hamilton Contracts
18
FedScoop. Treasury Cancels Booz Allen Hamilton Contracts
19
IRS. IRS Communication on Data Disclosure
20
House Ways and Means Committee. Work to Prevent Politicized Leaks of Private Taxpayer Information