Townhall/ BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A Louisiana private investigator pleaded guilty on Monday to misusing Donald Trump’s Social Security number in repeated attempts to access the president’s federal tax information before his election last year.
Jordan Hamlett, 32, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine following his guilty plea in federal court.
Authorities have said Hamlett failed in his attempts to get Trump’s tax information through a U.S. Department of Education financial aid website.
Trump has refused to release his tax returns, bucking an American tradition honored by every president since Jimmy Carter.
A court document accompanying Hamlett’s plea agreement says he used Trump’s Social Security number and other personal information to open an online application for federal student aid on Sept. 13, 2016. After obtaining a username and password, he tried to use an Internal Revenue Service data retrieval tool to obtain Trump’s tax information, the document says.
“The defendant made six separate attempts to obtain the federal tax information from IRS servers, but he was unsuccessful,” says the document. It doesn’t specify how much of Trump’s tax information could have been retrieved with the online tool.
Hamlett, a Lafayette resident, was indicted in November 2016. His trial had been scheduled to start this week, but the judge originally assigned to the case died on Saturday after a brief illness. U.S. District Court Judge John deGravelles, who inherited the case, didn’t immediately schedule Hamlett’s sentencing hearing.
Defense attorney Michael Fiser had argued Hamlett didn’t have any “intent to deceive” and simply tried “out of sheer curiosity” to discover whether Trump’s tax information could be accessed through the government website. more here
No intent to deceive, huh? Isn’t that what you are intending to do when you are using someone’s identity to open an online account without that person’s knowledge and consent?
His first reaction wuz: “Hey why not? Obama used mine!”
Indicted in November 2016, but just now a story? Looks like another example of the media hiding stories that buck their narrative.
“…simply tried “out of sheer curiosity” to discover whether Trump’s tax information could be accessed through the government website.”
No, he wanted to get it so he could give it to the leftist media so they could smear Trump. He wanted to be a hero for the left, plain and simple.
“didn’t have any “intent to deceive” and simply tried “out of sheer curiosity”
Curious if he could. Likely politics drove him to develop a plan.
Two motives I’d wager his intent.
Political and financial.
Fame and fortune, would be his reward.
So, how many times has he (and other PI’s) used this method to gain access to people’s tax returns?
This isn’t the first time he did this and he learned it from someone.
Calling Koskinen, calling Koskinen… cover needed stat.
I can remember a time, not very long ago, when “intent” didn’t matter at all. Did you break the law or not? That was the standard. A judge would laugh at your excuses and sentence you.
Anybody notice that if you’re not in government, you can still be prosecuted for a crime?
Trumps tax returns are his business and none of ours. I hope this asshole gets the maximum sentence allowed by law so that he and any other idiots get the idea that there will be consequences for their actions
He should get 5 years for each attempt, 30 years total. Whoever hired him should get the same.
I think the turds intentions were to sell the information to The Enquirer for some big bucks.
Give him the maximum time. Accessing a Presidential candidates tax info isn’t like accessing your next door neighbours. The fact that Trump refused to release his tends to cast doubt on this guys excuse that he was just curious but rather I suspect he intended to release it to the media. When the media squeal about the sentence then remind yourself that Obama has spent years and millions (possibly illegally from campaign funds) in blocking access to his university records and ask yourself why.
Isn’t that a similar excuse that dude used to hack Sarah Palin’s emails?
“Just seeing if he could do it.”
If he’s willing to go to jail for this, imagine the people he may have blackmailed while ‘investigating’ them. Or FOR them.
something tells me his La Voter Registration Card has “D” stamped all over it.