Who is Ana Reyes? All about Biden appointed judge who sentenced IRS consultant Charles Littlejohn over Trump tax leak

On January 29, 2024, Federal District Judge Ana Reyes sentenced a former US tax worker, Charles Littlejohn, to five years in prison over the unlawful leak of Donald Trump's personal tax records to media outlets.

Per a press release from the DOJ Office of Public Affairs, Charles Littlejohn, a 38-year-old Missouri native, is accused of stealing tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official while working at the Internal Revenue Service as a government contractor. Littlejohn reportedly disseminated the information to two news organizations between August 2019 and October 2019.

While the press releases did not name the public official or the news organizations, Littlejohn reportedly identified him as Donald Trump in court as he admitted to the crime, BBC reported. The former contractor also revealed he had given information to two US media outlets, the New York Times and ProPublica, who published extensive reports revealing Trump only paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and failed to file taxes in 10 of the last 15 years.

In a court filing, Littlejohn, who had pleaded guilty in October 2023 to one count of disclosing tax return information, argued that he acted out of moral obligation when he leaked the files as he believed the American taxpayers deserve to know the truth.

However, Judge Ana Reyes, remained resolute in her judgment that Littlejohn’s conduct as a government employee expected to uphold the law was unjustifiable.

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Judge Ana Reyes was appointed to the United States District Court in 2022

Judge Ana Reyes holds an M.A. with distinction from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A Summa cum laude from Transylvania University. She was nominated by President Biden to serve on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in May 2022.

At the time, Reyes, a Uruguayan-born American lawyer, was a law partner at Williams & Connolly, where she served as co-chair of the firm’s International Disputes practice group and served on the firm’s Executive Committee between 2018 to 2021, according to the firm’s website.

Reyes worked as a Law clerk to Judge Amalya Kearse, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after graduation. In 2001, she began working as an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C and remained there until she was made partner in 2009.

She worked at the firm for two decades until she was nominated as a judge to serve on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In 2017, Reyes was named the D.C. Women’s Bar Association’s Woman Lawyer of the Year for her pro bono work representing the rights of asylum seekers in the United States, as per her bio on the Yale University website, where she is a visiting clinical lecturer who teaches Advocacy in International Arbitration.

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What did Judge Ana Reyes say about Charles Littlejohn

On Monday, while sentencing Charles Littlejohn for leaking Trump tax documents at a hearing at the federal courthouse in Washington, Judge Ana Reyes described his conduct as an attack on constitutional democracy noting he targetted a sitting president of the United States:

“What you did in targeting the sitting president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy.”

Reyes, who acknowledged that Littlejohn felt a moral imperative while leaking the documents, said it does not absolve him of any wrongdoing. Reyes also compared his actions to January 6 attackers, who she said were also compelled by their beliefs when they attacked the capitol.

While announcing the sentence, Reyes said that by imposing the maximum penalty, she hoped it would dissuade people from viewing Charles Littlejohn's conduct as acceptable or justifiable under the scope of law.

In addition to the five years in prison, Ana Reyes ordered Charles Littlejohn to spend three years under supervised release and pay a $5,000 fine for his actions. Littlejohn was asked to turn himself in by April 30.