Lack of accountability breeds mistrust on IRS leak
Washington Examiner
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With trust in the federal government at an all-time low, government officials should particularly avoid the appearance of bias and favoritism in all their actions.
That is not what happened this month when it was revealed that a federal contractor only got a slap on the wrist for illegally leaking thousands of private documents to the press, and that the contractor’s employer was awarded another lucrative federal contract by the same agency that failed to protect the privacy of citizens.
DEMOCRAT LIES ARE ENDANGERING AMERICAN LIVES
In 2020, just weeks before the presidential election, the New York Times published a series of hostile stories about President Donald Trump based on Internal Revenue Service personal income tax documents mysteriously obtained by the news organization.
Then, six months later, ProPublica published articles based on the personal income tax documents of Elon Musk and major Republican donors. The data in these articles were used by Democrats on Capitol Hill to push for higher taxes.
Hundreds of private tax documents were stolen from the IRS and then shared with compliant liberal media outlets for the benefit of the Democratic Party.
The perpetrator of this crime was caught. His name is Charles Littlejohn, a Democratic Party donor, as are his parents. He should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Each and every Littlejohn theft of a private IRS document and dissemination to the press was a felony, carrying a five-year sentence. Littlejohn stole hundreds of documents and gave them to countless reporters. He should be facing a lengthy jail sentence. Instead, he is being charged with only a single count of disclosing tax information without authorization and is likely going to be sentenced to just eight months behind bars.
This extremely light sentence will, as intended, do nothing to deter future Democrats from stealing IRS documents and leaking them to the press for partisan purposes. Nor will it restore the faith of conservatives that every tax return might as well be copied to the Democratic National Committee.
The contractor that employed Littlejohn, Booz Allen Hamilton, was recently awarded a new contract to help modernize the IRS computer system. Since Booz Allen Hamilton employees give over 75% of their donations to Democrats, hundreds more potential Charles Littlejohns will have access to the private data of Republican voters.
This is not the first time Booz Allen Hamilton has failed to protect sensitive government data. It was the company that Edward Snowden worked for when he stole National Security Agency data in 2013, and was also the employer of Harold Martin when he stole NSA data in 2014.
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If the federal government wants to restore trust in government it needs to hire as many Republicans as Democrats.
If it is not willing to do that, then when Democratic operatives break the law and violate their trust, they must be punished to the full extent of the law. That is not what happened to Littlejohn, and that is not what happened to Booz Allen Hamilton.