Why Does GOP Budget Bill Focus on Punishing People Who Leak Tax Returns?

As the Trump administration vows to crack down on leakers Republicans in Congress want to hand the Justice Department even more power to punish one extremely specific type of leak unauthorized disclosures of tax records which in fresh years have exposed the creative accounting of the Trump family and wealthy allies like Elon Musk A provision tucked near the end of the GOP s massive budget bill at page of the -page text circulated late Sunday would double the maximum prison sentence for leaking tax returns to years and increase doable fines from to per violation Boosting penalties for leakers may seem an odd fit for a budget bill much like the nonprofit killer provision that was in the past few days nixed without explanation Because of their tenuous relationship to fiscal matters the provisions potentially aren t allowed under the rules for Congress s budget reconciliation process Just don t ask the main proponent of increasing the penalties for tax return leaks Republican Rep Jason Smith of Missouri if these provisions were appropriate to include Wish I could be helpful but that s a question for the Senate parliamentarian replied Smith s communications director J P Freire by email Last session Smith sponsored a stand-alone bill with identical proposed changes to the tax code that passed the House of Representatives last year but failed to advance in the Senate Smith is one of President Donald Trump s main surrogates on Capitol Hill for the budget bill and is also chair of the House Procedures and Means Committee which included his proposal about tax record leaks in its section of the budget bill Critics wonder whether increasing prison sentences for journalists sources is the best use of legislators time Critics wonder whether increasing prison sentences for journalists sources is the best use of legislators time as the White House works with House Republicans to push the budget toward the Senate The proposal would also increase criminal penalties for those who print or publish in any manner leaked tax return information although prosecutors looking to go after journalists and outlets directly would face constitutional hurdles under the Supreme Court s First Amendment precedent Of curriculum tax information is highly sensitive and there are legitimate reasons to protect financial privacy wrote Seth Stern director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation in an email But there are also times when it s highly newsworthy for example when a president keeps secrets about his finances and business dealings abroad or when powerful politicians and billionaires evade taxation There is no need to drastically heighten existing penalties which as far as I know have been largely effective deterrents aside from cases where whistleblowers felt compelled by their consciences to expose impropriety Republicans fixation on tax return leaks focuses on one person Charles Littlejohn who pleaded guilty in January to leaking Trump s tax returns to the New York Times and a cache of tax return facts for thousands of wealthy individuals to ProPublica Related He Leaked Trump s Tax Returns Will Biden Protect Him In its description advancing Smith s bill last summer the Avenues and Means Committee made Littlejohn the main character and Trump a pitiful victim During Littlejohn s trial Republican members of the committee wrote to the federal judge to demand that he spend five years in prison the maximum under the current statute instead of months as recommended by the federal sentencing guidelines Judge Ana Reyes a Biden nominee did as Republicans suggested and sentenced Littlejohn to the five-year maximum which he is in the present appealing But for multiple Republicans Littlejohn got off too easy Given the lack of deterrence created by the law as is as well as the concern that such an unprecedented statistics breach could consequence in such a disproportionate charge and sentence the Committee felt it was necessary to increase the penalties reads the committee overview about Smith s bill But years is the kind of prison sentence beyond that given to a large number of people convicted of crimes like possessing child sexual abuse material and certain firearms offenses stated Christopher A Wellborn president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Do we really need to have imprisonment for up to years on something like this Wellborn appealed Lawmakers and judges should focus on stopping tax evasion by the rich and powerful During his sentencing Littlejohn s attorneys argued that he leaked the tax return information out of a deep moral belief that the American people had a right to know the information and sharing it was the only way to effect change But just like the Espionage Act the tax code s leak provisions have no population interest defense Leakers motives and whether their disclosures serve the population good should at least be a mitigating factor Stern mentioned Whistleblowers should not be treated the same as malicious actors Lawmakers and judges should focus on stopping tax evasion by the rich and powerful not on disproportionate punishments for whistleblowers who expose how existing law is failing Americans The proposals to stiffen penalties for tax return leakers are part of Republicans budget bill which is as of now advancing through the reconciliation mechanism Under the so-called Byrd rule named for the late Sen Robert Byrd of West Virginia matters that are extraneous to the budget and fiscal matters cannot be enacted via reconciliation Earlier this month the leaker provision was scored as having negligible impact on revenue by the Joint Committee on Taxation That will hurt Republicans arguments under the Byrd rule predicted Bobby Kogan senior director for federal budget framework at the Center for American Progress who has studied reconciliation and the Byrd rule which is applied by the Senate s parliamentarian In for example the parliamentarian nixed Democrats attempt to increase the federal minimum wage in a reconciliation bill ruling that any impact of the change on the federal budget was merely incidental to the underlying protocol intent which violates the Byrd rule All of the Republican budget bill s proposals regarding tax leaks to increase the maximum sentence increase the maximum fine and a third proposal that clarifies that each leak is a separate violation for each taxpayer whose information is disclosed are likely Byrdable according to Kogan especially the increase in prison sentence Slapping on a jail sentence is about punishment for offenses not about changing dollars and cents coming in or out of the cabinet Kogan wrote Of the three parts I feel that this is least defensible under Byrd But if I were the Parliamentarian and doing my best to advise based on precedent I would nix all three of these The post Why Does GOP Budget Bill Focus on Punishing People Who Leak Tax Returns appeared first on The Intercept