By Paul Sperry for RealClearInvestigations
The Internal Revenue Service recently awarded a lucrative contract to help modernize its computer databases to the same Washington company, Booz Allen Hamilton, that employed the man who pleaded guilty last week to stealing and leaking thousands of private tax returns from wealthy Americans. including the former president. Trump, according to data reviewed by RealClearInvestigations.
Cyber thief Charles “Chaz” Littlejohn was working on an IRS contract for Booz Allen in 2018 when he stole more than two decades of Trump’s personal tax information from IRS computers. He later leaked them to the New York Times, which published negative stories about Trump’s long-awaited returns just weeks before the 2020 election, which Trump narrowly lost.
After the election, Littlejohn leaked a trove of sensitive IRS data on Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg and other billionaires — including major conservative donors — to ProPublica. The left-wing news site used them to write a series, “The Secret IRS Files,” about how the wealthy use loopholes and tricks to avoid taxes. Congressional Democrats cited the series in their push for higher taxes on the wealthy.
Littlejohn, a Democratic donor, struck a deal with federal prosecutors in which he managed to release tax information without authorization. Although he faces a maximum sentence of five years, his plea deal calls for an estimated eight to 14 months when he is scheduled to be sentenced on January 29.
Booz Allen Hamilton, the world’s most profitable government contractor, has had ties to high-profile Democrats over the years, including former employee James Clapper, who served as President Obama’s intelligence czar. Clapper was involved in an intelligence community operation to suppress information about Biden’s foreign influence on his son’s laptop just weeks before the 2020 election.
At least two Obama administration alumni serve on Booz Allen’s board. President Clinton’s IRS commissioner also holds a seat. Federal records show that Booz Allen contributed a total of $238,776 to Joe Biden in the 2020 election cycle, compared to $85,657 to Trump. The company also gave nearly four times more money to the Democratic National Committee than to the Republican National Committee.
Related: Trump Tax Leaker Worked for Biden Beltway Donor Who Just Won Big New IRS Contract
Federal investigators closed in on Littlejohn, 38, this summer when the Biden administration decided to rehire his former employer, Booz Allen, on a contract with a cap value of $2.6 billion to help the IRS’s IT operations revised. The massive new IRS contract could explain why the Biden administration won’t name Littlejohn’s employer in lawsuits and press releases about the case.
The Justice Department would say only that Littlejohn “served as a contractor for Company A, a consulting firm serving public and private clients.” The Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS and is also investigating Littlejohn, also did not identify Booz Allen as the company. That includes Littlejohn’s lawyers, who declined to comment.
The Washington media has jumped on board with the blackout, describing Littlejohn as an “IRS contractor.” Even though they have reported in some detail about the mechanisms of Littlejohn’s theft — he uploaded data to a private server rather than downloading it to a flash drive that could trigger an IRS alert — news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and Politico never explained the key question of how he got access to the tax returns in the first place: because he worked for Booz Allen.
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The identity of his former employer is not difficult to find on the Internet. A February 26, 2018 Pew Charitable Trust bulletin describes Littlejohn as “an associate of the financial and economic development practice of Booz Allen Hamilton.”
The massive IRS breach raises new questions about Booz Allen’s ability to protect sensitive government information. In 2013, Booz Allen put Edward Snowden to work at the National Security Agency. In May, Snowden left the country with thousands of top-secret documents that he soon leaked to journalists, exposing the agency’s global counter-terrorism surveillance program. Snowden fled to Russia and was granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin in 2022.
Related: Ex-IRS contractor who leaked Trump’s tax returns pleads guilty
In 2016, Booz Allen computer analyst Harold Martin III was arrested for stealing other data from the NSA. The McLean, Virginia-based company employs more than 20,000 consultants with government security clearances who handle some of the nation’s most confidential data.
Despite this history of breaches, the IRS has relied on Booz Allen to help modernize its computer system. In late June, the IRS awarded the company part of a multibillion-dollar contract to update its databases, which involves consolidating roughly 400 different systems into a new, cloud-based architecture. The IRS did not respond to requests for comment about Booz Allen.
In a press statement following Littlejohn’s arrest, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said the agency has “tightened security” in the wake of the leaks. According to a press release from the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department’s inspector general is “still investigating” the matter. Prosecutors have not provided a motive for Littlejohn’s crime. They do not say whether they know why he leaked Trump’s tax information to the media.
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
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