CNN reports:
The Treasury Department cut ties with Booz Allen Hamilton on Monday and announced that it was canceling $21 million in federal contracts with the consulting giant because one of its ex-employees previously leaked President Donald Trump’s tax returns to the press.
A statement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent referenced Charles Littlejohn, a onetime Booz employee who is now serving a five-year prison term for stealing tax return information on Trump and other wealthy Americans while contracting at the IRS.
“President Trump has entrusted his cabinet to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and canceling these contracts is an essential step to increasing Americans’ trust in government,” Bessent said in the statement. “Booz Allen failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service.”
A Booz Allen spokesperson disputed some of Bessent’s claims in a statement to CNN.
Read more at CNN.
COMMENT: CNN’s headline actually reads, “Treasury cancels $21 million in Booz Allen contracts, blaming Trump tax return leak,” but Bessent’s statement never mentions the President or the fact that his data had been leaked in the incident. CNN seems to be leaping to the suspicion or connecting dots that might lead cynical people to consider that the cancellation is revenge for the fact that the President’s data had been leaked at the time.
Having a data breach or leak that reveals inadequate security against insider wrongdoing where the contractor’s employee leaked data on approximately 400,000 taxpayers might be justification enough for not renewing or canceling the contract at that time. But Littlejohn pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced two years ago to five years in prison for his crime. What has Booz Allen done since that incident to prevent future incidents of that kind?
Is the government going to cancel every contract where there has been an insider wrongdoing breach in the past, or is it only going to cancel the ones that personally affected the President?
Why is Treasury really first canceling its contract with Booz Allen now?