Biden: Clemency for Charles Littlejohn Now

Charles Littlejohn leaving court. Screengrab from CNN video.

Outgoing President Joe Biden has issued some questionable pardons and commutations. He controversially pardoned his own son, Hunter Biden, a move he had previously vowed not to do; AP (12/11/24) found that only 20 percent of Americans approved of the pardon. The New York Times editorial board (12/4/24) called it a “significant misstep that could leave lasting damage” because it “reinforces the sense that [former President] Trump’s systematic abuse of the pardon system in his first term was not an aberration.”

Then he commuted the sentence of Michael Conahan who “was convicted in 2011 of funneling juveniles to for-profit detention centers in exchange for more than $2 million in kickbacks” and “sentenced to more than 17 years in prison” (Politico, 12/13/24). Also on Biden’s clemency list were Paul Daugerdas, who was once described as “the most prolific, pernicious and utterly unrepentant tax cheat in United States history” (New York, 12/23/24). There was also, as NBC (12/12/24) reported:

“Elaine Lovett, of Wayne County, Michigan, was convicted in 2017 for her role in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud Medicare using false billing claims, in a takedown that included 20 Detroit-area doctors and health care workers, according to federal prosecutors. The $26 million scheme involved billing Medicare for services that were never provided and efforts to bypass the government’s probe.”

Certainly, Biden found time and energy to make sure a few scumbags who did incredible harm to the public got out of jail early. If that is the case, and he truly wants to leave on a positive note, Biden should use his power grant clemency to Charles Littlejohn, the IRS contractor who was sentenced to five years for leaking tax returns to the New York Times (9/27/20) and ProPublica (6/8/21, 11/4/21) showing how the nation’s rich, including the President-elect Trump, use the law to evade taxes (CNN, 1/29/24).

Time is running out: Biden leaves office on January 20.

I wrote at the time (FAIR.org, 2/2/24) that Littlejohn’s leaks were of monumental public importance, similar to the NSA disclosures made by Edward Snowden, and that the five-year sentence would have a chilling effect on the press who rely on sources like Littlejohn to shine a light government and corporate abuse. Congressional Republicans had pushed for a harsh sentence (National Review, 1/29/24), a move celebrated by the Wall Street Journal editorial board (1/29/24).

But the anger didn’t just come from the right: Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in response to the ProPublica investigation that finding the source of the leak was a top priority (CNBC, 6/9/21). At sentencing, Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee with a background in pro bono refugee assistance and advocacy against the Trump administration (Courthouse News Service, 8/2/19), chided the already victorious prosecution for only bringing only one felony charge against Littlejohn (Politico Pro, 1/30/24), even though prosecutors sought the maximum sentence (Roll Call, 1/26/24). Reyes even took Littlejohn to task for specifically exposing Trump’s tax information because “when you’re targeting the office of the president of the United States, you’re targeting democracy” (Daily Kos, 1/29/24). Littlejohn is currently at a medium-security federal prison with a minimum-security satellite camp in downstate Illinois with a release date of May 19, 2028.

Four prominent tax law scholars have sent a letter to President Biden demanding clemency for Littlejohn (Inequality, 12/16/24). They said

“Under current law, disclosing tax returns is a crime, and Mr. Littlejohn pled guilty. Under the sentencing guidelines, his maximum sentence was ten months, but federal district judge Ana Reyes sentenced him to five years, or six times the maximum sentence, on the grounds that others must be deterred from doing the same.

“But is deterrence necessary in this case? Not really. There is a reason why IRS workers almost never leak tax information: They know that (like Mr. Littlejohn) they will likely be caught, because it is easy to discover who accessed the relevant returns, and that they will lose their jobs and probably go to jail. Ten months in jail is a sufficient deterrent, and most IRS employees do not value the public’s right to know over their own personal freedom.

Mr. Littlejohn’s sentence is particularly harsh in comparison with some recent sentences meted out to blatant tax evaders.”

Reuven Avi-Yonah, law professor at the University of Michigan and one of the signers of the letter, took this point further (Tax Notes, 5/20/24), pointing out the absurd nature of Littlejohn’s sentence, saying “An Oklahoma man was sentenced…to 30 months in prison for evading over $1 million in income taxes” and “An Indiana woman was sentenced…to 21 months in prison for conspiring to file false tax returns, wire fraud and tax evasion,” among other tax evasion sentences that were a fraction of the punishment Littlejohn received. In short, Avi-Yonah showed, the US justice system considered evading taxes to be a minor infraction, but exposing how rich people get away with such acts is a high crime.

Biden should listen to these experts because he does have the chance to leave some kind of positive legacy before Trump comes into office. The US is about to not only have a Republican administration that is adverse to progressive tax reform (Wall Street Journal, 12/30/24) but a president who is one of the oligarchs exposed in Littlejohn’s disclosures. And part of Trump’s reactionary agenda to silence the free press involves going after leakers (Rolling Stone, 12/12/24); his first term saw an intense campaign against leakers (Committee to Protect Journalists, 3/6/19; Intercept, 3/2/21; New York Times, 12/10/24). Littlejohn’s selfless actions are central to keeping a free press alive and expose the way in which the government favors the rich over everyone else. In essence, Littlejohn is everything tyrants like Trump hate.

There are plenty of valid criticisms of Biden’s presidential term, but progressives approved his economic policies that served the interests of workers and consumers, especially his administration of the National Labor Relations Board (CNN, 4/23/24) and the Federal Trade Commission (FAIR.org, 3/14/23). Clemency for Littlejohn wouldn’t just be a declaration of support for the press, but for the notion that many Americans don’t want a government run only in the interests of the very wealthy. Even the negative press from pro-corporate pundits in response to a Littlejohn clemency could revive a national discussion about inequality and the rigged nature of the tax system.

Rob Larson–a professor of economics at Tacoma Community College and the author of Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More–said

“Charles Littlejohn’s release of select taxpayer files to the press was a major act of public service, casting valuable light on the staggering secretive fortunes stacked up by the rich ruling class, constituting a victory for tax justice. Public knowledge of billionaires paying lower tax rates than their janitors is seriously important in obliging the incredibly privileged oligarchs of our ruling class to pay something like a fair share for the public services we count on every day.”

Littlejohn pleaded guilty, and what he did was statutorily not legal, but unlike people like Daugerdas and Lovett, he acted in the interests of the people and did nothing for his own personal gain. It also isn’t clear what public harm he committed beyond the breach of his responsibilities. Many of these wealthy people were probably embarrassed by these disclosures, but this comes with the territory of obscene riches. Judge Reyes failed to consider this at sentencing, but Biden has a chance to correct this before Trump and his allies like Elon Musk–the anti-union billionaire (Guardian, 12/20/23) who, according to the ProPublica investigation, pays 3.27% of his wealth in taxes–take over.

Clemency for Littlejohn would hardly be extreme. Biden was vice president when then-President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the leaker in the Wikileaks case (New York Times, 1/17/17). Manning served seven years of her 35-year sentence, which the Times said “was by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction.”

I lamented at the time of Littlejohn’s sentencing that in the face of places like the Wall Street Journal celebrating the harsh sentencing, the New York Times and ProPublica were not forceful in their advocacy of their source. Real accountability journalism only happens because someone disobeyed an order by people in power to not talk to the press. With a new administration that is hostile to the free press, these publications should vocally advocate for Littlejohn’s release, too.

If Biden could find it in his heart to help “the most prolific, pernicious and utterly unrepentant tax cheat in United States history” then surely he can help a crusader for tax justice.