A former Internal Revenue Service contractor, who leaked tax information about Donald Trump and other wealthy individuals to news organizations, got his job to intentionally to spread the confidential records, according to Justice Department prosecutors.
Charles Edward Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, pleaded guilty in October to unauthorized disclosure of tax return and return information. U.S. District Judge Ana Reye scheduled sentencing for Jan. 29. Prosecutors recommended Tuesday he receive the maximum sentence of five years in prison.
“After applying to work as an IRS consultant with the intention of accessing and disclosing tax returns, Defendant weaponized his access to unmasked taxpayer data to further his own personal, political agenda, believing that he was above the law,” wrote prosecutors Corey Amundson, chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, Jennifer Clarke and Jonathan Jacobson.
A precedent where your followers break the law in your name can be a dangerous war of escalation between opponents.
Trump already set that precedent when he pardoned Roger Stone.
That’s exactly my point. Now people want more. Escalate it. Same bullshit as Israel/palestine. Well the first guy did “x” first, then the other guy says but you did the other thing first, etc., etc…
The height of stupidity, there is no end of the blame game of grievances, manufactured or real.
No, I’m not saying “both sides”, one side is objectively better (even if marginally), I’m saying a war of escalating tit-for-tat justifications is useless.
E: in comparison, according the following comments who apparently haven’t a clue and completely misrepresent my intent and argument: Biden should release any democrats from prison or reinstate democrats in positions after they left due to any impropriety. That’s the war of escalation I’m talking about, not simply following the law.
So only the one side should abuse their power? They are not going to stop abusing it just because their opponents took the high ground.
So everyone should abuse their power? Are you willfully blind to where that goes?
Are you willfully blind to what happens if you let your opponents oppress and abuse you without fighting back in kind? I am not going to the gulag. Have fun there.
Your methodology ends up with a dictator seizing power to put all their opponents in the gulag. All you’re saying is that you hope your dictator wins first. You’re absolutely clueless about geopolitical history if you don’t understand how this works.
I don’t see you offering a viable alternative. Your method is to just acquiesce? The rule of law has already failed. Trump is not in jail. The Supreme Court (1/3 appointed by Trump) is on the take from conservative billionaires. Congressional corruption put Gorsuch on the Court rather than Garland (longest vacancy by 3x the next longest), then turned around and replaced Ginsberg with an extremely quick turnaround.
The failure to act in kind has already weakened this country irreparably. Let’s keep letting them do what they do. It’s worked out terribly so far.
So yeah, I would rather my dictator than their’s, but I am going to get their’s.
The viable alternative is to follow the law and vote the assholes out. If you cannot manage that and/or it fails, and still wish to maintain some semblance of democracy, you’re fucked. I think that’s painfully obvious. You try to do the right thing, and if you choose the same path as the shitheads you hate you’re just the same. You just twisted the needle from a christo-fascist autocracy to a Stalinist communist autocracy.
It doesn’t matter if it’s your point or not, it’s still a wrong-headed way of thinking about the situation because the world doesn’t revolve around fearing what Republicans will do if a Democrat pardons a righteous man. He should be pardoned regardless.
You are creating the us vs. them situation you’re accusing you opponent of engaging in specifically by making that argument. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We do not simply stop doing what is right because some assholes might pardon evil people in retaliation. We do what is right regardless, because that’s the whole point of righteousness.
Republicans will pardon their own anyway so it doesn’t even matter. We need to do the same.
My point doesn’t matter? So you discard my point to make yours? What the heck kind of argument is that? My point wasn’t about right vs wrong, it was about taking knee-jerk retaliatory action devoid of nuance or reason.
You accused me of making it about fear of republicans, that’s doing what you accused me of doing by “creating” the argument. I said nothing about appeasement or letting them have their way to avoid trouble.
In no way shape or form do I think actual and real harm should remain unaddressed. Bullshit must be met head on, but with measured and real responses. But just knee-jerk reaction? No.
Your point is irrelevant, because it is a fundamental misrepresentation of the situation you are imposing because you have an ideological agenda. One which we will not be bullied or manipulated into submitting to.
You’re not even really reading or thinking about what I’m saying, you’re just repeating what you said before like a robot. And I don’t argue with robots.
Misrepresentation of the situation I’m imposing…wow. Way to twist my words. I make a point, stick to it, and you accuse me of bullying because you’d rather I bend a knee to you? Fine. Feel free to engage in your tit-for-tat war. I’ll just hang over here to you finally set each other on fire while screaming “the other guy did it first”. What a fucking waste of time.
“your followers”
More like “those who hate the other guy”