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kash patel
New Campaign Urges Biden to Commute Sentence of 'Public Hero' Who Leaked Trump Tax Data
Patriotic Millionaires and Revolving Door Project are leading the push for Biden to reduce IRS whistleblower Charles Littlejohn's prison term.
Dec 16, 2024
Update:
Patriotic Millionaires senior vice president for tax policy Bob Lord and Revolving Door Project senior researcher Kenny Stancil on Wednesday published commentary in Rolling Stone highlighting the campaign urging Biden to commute Littlejohn's sentence. This, a day after the campaign launched a website where people can add their voices to the chorus of calls for commutation.
Earlier:
With just over a month left in U.S. President Joe Biden's term, a pair of advocacy groups this week launched a campaign urging the outgoing Democrat to commute the sentence of an Internal Revenue Service contractor serving five years in prison for exposing tax dodging by wealthy Americans including Republican President-elect Donald Trump.
The campaign, which is a collaboration between the Revolving Door Project and Patriotic Millionaires, is planning a week of action to push Biden to commute the five-year sentence of Charles Littlejohn—who was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine after pleading guilty in October 2023 to unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information to media outlets—to 10 months, the maximum term of imprisonment he was supposed to receive under the federal guidelines.
On Monday, the campaign letter to Biden from four tax law professors calling on Biden reduce Littlejohn's sentence, which the experts called "particularly harsh in comparison with some recent sentences meted out to blatant tax evaders."
The letter asserts that Littlejohn—who gave The New York Timesinformation on Trump and shared with ProPublica data on Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and others—acted "out of a sincere belief in the public's right to know."
"I've been a tax lawyer for 40 years. For the past decade, I've been pretty outspoken about the various maneuvers that the ultra-rich deploy to avoid tax," Bob Lord, the senior vice president for Tax Policy at Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement. "But despite my best efforts, I fully recognize that no technical explanation that I could give about any of the myriad tax loopholes that the rich exploit would ever stick in the public conscience the same way that Charles Littlejohn's leaks did about billionaires like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos paying $0 in income tax."
"Littlejohn did break the law, but at the end of the day, he actually did the country a great service by exposing the full degree to which our tax code privileges the wealthy and well-connected," Lord added. "And if lawmakers are inspired by Littlejohn's leaks to finally take meaningful steps to reform our tax system and rein in extreme wealth, he will have undoubtedly done more to save American democracy than harm it."
University of Michigan law professor Reuven Avi-Yonah, the letter's lead signer, has called Littlejohn a "public hero."
According to the professors:
There are many cases that involve massive tax evasion and do not lead to a criminal indictment. Consider for example the case of Alon Farhy, who transferred more than $2 million to a sham foreign entity, which then transferred the funds to a bank account in the name of a Belize-based corporation Mr. Farhy created solely for that purpose. Mr. Farhy's scheme violated a variety of tax-related obligations beyond his duty to correctly report and pay the income tax he owed. The [U.S. Department of Justice] entered into a nonprosecution agreement with Mr. Farhy immunizing him from criminal prosecution in exchange for paying his taxes plus interest and penalties.
"Many other cases involving tax evasion do not result in jail time," the letter notes. "For example, Raj Mukhi ran a business that manufactured and sold professional uniforms in many countries. He was indicted in 2014 for hiding the proceeds in a private bank based in Zürich. He pleaded guilty to one count of filing a false tax return and one count of failing to disclose a foreign bank account and was sentenced to three years of supervised release."
"Even if there is a prison sentence, it is usually much shorter than five years," the professors stressed. "To mention just some cases from this year, an Oklahoma man who instructed a payroll company working with his business to falsely characterize over $2.6 million as reimbursements rather than income was sentenced to 30 months."
"An Indiana woman who electronically filed false income tax returns for clients that reported fictitious businesses and also filed a false tax return for herself that underreported gross receipts from her business was sentenced to 21 months," the letter adds. "A New Jersey man was sentenced to 29 months for evading taxes and not filing income tax returns while earning over $2.5 million in wages. All of these cases involve conduct that is much more culpable and less public-spirited than Mr. Littlejohn's."
"There is a big difference between leaking tax information and tax evasion in the size of the universe of potential violations and the number of violators escaping punishment," the professors said. "The universe of potential violators leaking tax information is infinitesimal compared to the universe of potential tax evaders. And the number of potential violators escaping punishment for leaking tax information is close to zero, whereas the number of evaders escaping punishment is huge."
As his term winds down, Biden has issued approximately 1,500 commutations and 39 pardons, including controversial clemency for his son Hunter Biden and Michael Conahan, a former Pennsylvania judge convicted in a "kids-for-cash" scheme in which he and a colleague funneled thousands of juveniles into private detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks.
With the looming return of Trump—who presided over more federal executions during his first term than numerous presidents did over several preceding decades—advocates are pushing Biden to commute the sentences of 40 federal death row inmates. Advocates are also calling on Biden to pardon figures including Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier and environmental attorney Steven Donziger.
Earlier this month,
Politico Magazinereported that Biden is weighing preemptive pardons for numerous public officials who could be targeted by Trump—who has vowed to exact revenge on his political enemies—during his second term. Kash Patel, Trump's pick to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has threatened to prosecute the president-elect's political opponents and journalists.
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Watchdog Says Wray Should Not Assist Trump's Attack on FBI by Resigning
"FBI directors are given 10-year terms for a reason: to insulate them from political pressure," said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen.
Dec 11, 2024
Current FBI Director Christopher Wray announced Wednesday that he will depart his post when President Joe Biden's term ends in January—a move that drew criticism from the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman pointed out that Wray's planned departure follows President-elect Donald Trump's threat to fire him.
"FBI directors are given 10-year terms for a reason: to insulate them from political pressure. To defend the vital independence of the FBI, Director Wray should not preemptively resign in face of Donald Trump's bad-faith threats to remove him," Weissman said in a statement.
Patel, who served as chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller at the end of Trump's first term, was characterized by The Associated Press earlier this year as a "trusted aide and swaggering campaign surrogate who mythologizes the former president while promoting conspiracy theories and his own brand."
Some of Patel's past statements have alarmed critics, who worry he may be willing to weaponize the agency to go after political enemies or media critics of Trump.
"We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections," he said during an appearance on former Trump advisor Steve Bannon's War Room podcast last year.
Weissman said that "if Donald Trump fires [Wray], so be it. But Wray should not aid and abet the effort to weaponize the FBI by bowing out in advance."
Weissman was not the only person to criticize Wray along these lines: "A profile in courage, Chris Wray is not. Wray bowed to political pressure; his early resignation is the easy way out. It avoids a very public conversation when Trump inevitably would have fired him," wrote Anthony Coley, an analyst at NBC News, CNBC, and MSNBC.
In announcing his decision to leave, Wray said the choice "is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work," according to The New York Times.
He also struck a wistful tone. "This is not easy for me," Wray said, per the Times. "I love this place, I love our mission, and I love our people."
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Trump Picks 'Deeply Strange' Kash Patel—Who Vowed to 'Come After People in the Media'—for FBI Director
Kash's nomination to lead the FBI, said one watchdog, "represents the cronyism that is coming to define the second Trump administration. Loyalty to President-elect Trump is what matters above all else."
Dec 01, 2024
Watchdog critics are sounding the alarm over president-elect Donald Trump's choice of Kashyap "Kash" Patel to be the next director of the FBI, calling the MAGA ultra-loyalist—who even former Republican colleagues describe as "dangerous" and unqualified—to be running the nation's top law enforcement agency.
Patel, who served in the previous Trump administration as chief of staff in the Department of Defense and a counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council, was characterized by the Associated Press earlier this year as "trusted aide and swaggering campaign surrogate who mythologizes the former president while promoting conspiracy theories and his own brand."
Journalist Medhi Hasan, co-founder of Zeteo, said that while previously working for MSNBC he had done a deep-dive on Patel, during which he discovered just what "a deeply strange and alarming and sycophantic figure" Trump's pick is.
"Yes, we're going to come after people in the media." —Kash Patel, 2023
As the New York Timesreports, Patel founded a nonprofit that provides legal assistance to individuals prosecuted for involvement in the January 6, 2021 insurrection and also runs a merchandise business which sells flashy pro-MAGA gear under the "K$H" label.
Patel, the Times notes, "sells pro-Trump T-shirts and other items as well as a series of his children's books that pay homage to 'King Donald.' Mr. Patel also collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from the 2024 Trump campaign and from Friends of Matt Gaetz, the campaign committee for the former House Republican from Florida, who withdrew from consideration as Mr. Trump’s attorney general after criticism over allegations of sex trafficking and drug use."
According to the watchdog group Accountable.US, Patel is just the latest unqualified choice by a president-elect will to put "political loyalty above national security." As the group noted in a statement:
While Patel joined the previous Trump administration in its last year and quickly rose through the ranks thanks to his hard-nosed style and fawning devotion to Donald Trump, other Trump officials reportedly regarded Patel as "dangerous" including General Mark Milley who feared he would break the law for Trump, and former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr who said "Over my dead body" when Trump entertained naming Patel deputy director of the FBI. Recently, Patel has threatened to prosecute journalists and political opponents of Trump. Patel has also reportedly spread baseless Qanon conspiracy theories and "earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from his own business dealings with Trump-related entities."
Last year, during an appearance on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, Patel vowed that Trump's enemies would be targeted if the former president returned to power. "We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media," Patel said at the time.
"Yes, we're going to come after people in the media," Patel explained to Bannon, talking about journalists and others who he claimed "help Joe Biden rig elections."
Tony Carrk, Accountable's executive director, warned Kash's nomination to lead the FBI "represents the cronyism that is coming to define the second Trump administration. Loyalty to President-elect Trump is what matters above all else."
"Even former Trump officials have questioned Patel's qualifications and ability to adhere to the rule of law after he has threatened to prosecute journalists and Trump's political opponents,” Carrk added. "Patel's financial entanglements with the president-elect also present potential conflicts of interest. He has turned his gushing idolization of Trump into a money-making opportunity, enriching himself by promoting the Trump brand alongside his own. It says it all about Donald Trump's priorities to once again reward a devout political crony even if it means America's national security interests come a distant second."
"Even in an administration full of loyalists, Patel was exceptional in his devotion."
Writing Saturday in The Atlantic, staff writer Elaina Plott Calabro described Kash as "exactly the kind of person who would serve in a second Trump administration," based on his personality as much as his record.
Why was he seen as "dangerous," even among Trump administration insiders at the time?
"It wasn't a question of ideology," according to Calabro. "He wasn't a zealot like Stephen Miller, trying to make the bureaucracy yield to his agenda. Rather, Patel appeared singularly focused on pleasing Trump. Even in an administration full of loyalists, Patel was exceptional in his devotion."
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