Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Newsmax on Tuesday that the House Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, is looking into what he considers a favorable deal that a former IRS contractor received from the Biden administration's Department of Justice leading to him pleading guilty to stealing thousands of tax returns and delivering some to left-wing media outlets.
The former contractor, Charles Littlejohn, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information, and was sentenced in January 2024 to five years in prison, according to the Department of Justice. Littlejohn reportedly admitted to using the IRS archive to access the tax returns and leaked them to The New York Times and ProPublica.
The IRS initially revealed that 70,000 returns from 2019 and 2020, including those of President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett, were stolen. But in a letter to Jordan dated Feb. 14, acting IRS Commissioner Douglas O'Donnell said the IRS "mailed notifications to 405,427 taxpayers whose taxpayer information was inappropriately disclosed by Mr. Littlejohn. Approximately 89% of the taxpayers are business entities."
"This guy, that was his stated objective," Jordan told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "He went there as a contractor, his goal, his whole purpose was to release President Trump's tax return and others. And we find out now, it was much worse than we thought, 405,000. Many of them were business entities, but also a lot of individuals.
"And of course, [under] 6103 of the United States federal code, you can't do that. It's a crime. But he's only been charged under the Biden Justice Department with one count against him when it was 405,000 entities whose data was made public and given to ProPublica and to the press."
The New York Times published a story about Trump's tax returns in September 2020, shortly before the presidential election, and ProPublica in June 2021 published a series of articles on the leaked returns of Musk, Bezos, Buffett, and others. Last week, a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that the IRS does not have "adequate controls" to detect or prevent the unauthorized removal of data.
Jordan said Trump's DOJ will be "a whole different story" under Attorney General Pam Bondi, deputy Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, but the investigation still needs to continue.
"We're going to work on getting more and more details about this whole thing," he said. "But I think it's a reflection of the Biden Justice Department and what their priorities [were]. Remember, this is the same Justice Department [that couldn't] tell us who planted the pipe bombs on Jan. 6. The same Justice Department [couldn't] tell us who leaked the [Supreme Court] Dobbs opinion. Same Justice Department [that couldn't] even tell us who put cocaine at the White House.
"So, you know, there's real problems there. I'm really encouraged by Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, the folks who are going to the Trump Justice Department, I think it's going to be a whole different story."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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