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FIRST ON FOX: A man serving in prison for leaking President Donald Trump’s and thousands of others’ confidential tax records recently asserted his Fifth Amendment right to the House Judiciary Committee and declined to testify before the panel, Fox News Digital has learned.
A public defender wrote to the Republican-led committee on behalf of Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor serving out a five-year sentence in Illinois, that because Littlejohn was appealing his sentence, he did not have to testify before Congress.
“The testimony that you seek from Mr. Littlejohn directly implicates his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination,” the public defender wrote on Saturday. “Mr. Littlejohn validly exercises that Constitutional right in declining to testify.”
EX-IRS CONTRACTOR WHO LEAKED TRUMP’S TAX RETURNS SENTENCED TO FIVE YEARS IN PRISON
The Republican-led House committee is investigating a plea deal Littlejohn reached with the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2023. Littlejohn admitted to prosecutors as part of the plea bargain that he carried out an elaborate scheme to access and disclose Trump’s tax information and the tax returns of thousands of the wealthiest U.S. citizens to the New York Times and ProPublica.
Among those targeted were Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett.
In return, Littlejohn was charged with and pleaded guilty to a single count of unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and received the maximum 60-month sentence for the charge.
At the time, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, questioned the wisdom of DOJ’s decision to charge Littlejohn with one charge when thousands had been affected by his actions, saying she was “perplexed” and “troubled” by the plea deal.
“The fact that he is facing one felony count, I have no words for,” Reyes said during his sentencing hearing.
IRS LEAKER SOUGHT CONSULTANT ROLE WITH EXPRESS PURPOSE OF LEAKING TRUMP’S TAX RETURNS, DOJ SAYS
Many Republicans also piled onto the Biden DOJ for the perceived leniency of the plea agreement. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said during the sentencing hearing it “makes no sense” and “should be called the plea deal of the century.”
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) criticized prosecutors for failing “to deter future IRS employees from leaking sensitive taxpayer information.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote a letter Tuesday to the Trump administration’s DOJ, obtained by Fox News Digital, requesting all communications and other records surrounding Littlejohn’s prosecution and accusing the prior administration’s DOJ of failing to provide “any substantive” information.
Jordan said he learned from the IRS that Littlejohn’s breach was far more expansive than what had been established in court.
“After President Trump took office, the IRS disclosed to the Committee that over 405,000 taxpayers were victims of Mr. Littlejohn’s leaks and that ‘89 [percent] of the taxpayers [we]re business entities,'” Jordan wrote. “While it is now clear that Mr. Littlejohn’s conduct violated the privacy of hundreds of thousands of American taxpayers, it remains unclear why the Biden-Harris Justice Department chose to allow him to plead guilty to only a single felony count.”
A DOJ spokesman declined to comment on Jordan’s request.
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