The man who stole and leaked former President Donald Trump and thousands of other’s tax records has been sentenced to five years in prison.
In October, Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized disclosures of income tax returns. According to his plea agreement, he stole Trump’s tax returns along with the tax data of “thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people,” while working for a consulting firm with contracts with the Internal Revenue Service.
Littlejohn leaked the information to two news outlets and deleted the documents from his IRS-assigned laptop before returning it and covered the rest of his digital tracks by deleting places where he initially stored the information.
Judge Ana Reyes highlighted the gravity of the crime, saying multiple times that it amounted to an attack against the US and its legal foundation.
Pretty damn fast compared to how long its taking to prosecute Trump.
…because the leaker plead guilty. If he went to trial this would have taken longer.
Does no one read the article or understand basic legal processes?
Technically the pleading guilty part is also in the footer below the post for users on desktop, but I was making a statement about due processes rather than complaining Charles case was too quick. Kind of akin to how a person mentions the beauty of the colors of clouds or the dread incurred by a coming storm just for somebody else to come along and yell “…Obviously. Does nobody watch the forecast or understand basic meteorology?”
A lot of people just want to be mad. This thread is full of people saying he should just be released, without realizing that if we release him because we happen to like the outcome, what’s that saying for the next person who wants to break the same law.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as happy as everyone else that he did release the documents, but he broke the law to do it and knew the consequences when he did so. He knew this was a possibility.
Surely outrage is a good substitute for the legal system?
So let me ask you something. What do you get out of this? Hanging around in places where you believe that all the people are wrong and foolish? Waiting for some comment that’s just low enough hanging fruit for you to know enough to have a basic response to, does this satisfy you? Your statement is no shit and your question is rhetorical. Do you just like standing in the middle of a crowd and screaming, denoting yourself separate and superior? Is this what you do online?
I like to have a diversity of thought and thought the Fediverse of all places would be promoting that. Instead everyone lumps into tribes and follows groupthink without question.
I’ve been here since LW started and belong here just as much as anyone else.