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IRS apologizes to billionaire Ken Griffin for leaking his tax records
The IRS issued a rare apology to billionaire investor Ken Griffin for releasing his tax records to the press, as well as to other taxpayers whose information was breached, the tax agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The Internal Revenue Service sincerely apologizes to Mr. Kenneth Griffin and the thousands of other Americans whose personal information was leaked to the press,” the IRS said.
The apology stems from the case of a former IRS contractor named Charles Littlejohn, who was sentenced earlier this year to five years in prison for unauthorized disclosure of tax returns. Littlejohn had provided tax return information for Griffin and other wealthy Americans to nonprofit news organization ProPublica.
In a statement to CBS MoneyWatch, Griffin said, “I am grateful to my team for securing an outcome that will better protect American taxpayers and that will ultimately benefit all Americans.”
Beginning in 2021, ProPublica published a series called “The Secret IRS Files,” which included the details of tax returns for thousands of rich taxpayers, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk. The coverage explored how some of the wealthiest Americans minimize their taxes.
Littlejohn “violated the terms of his contract and betrayed the trust that the American people place in the IRS to safeguard their sensitive information,” the agency said in Tuesday’s statement. “The IRS takes its responsibilities seriously and acknowledges that it failed to prevent Mr. Littlejohn’s criminal conduct and unlawful disclosure of Mr. Griffin’s confidential data.”
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Griffin, the founder of the hedge fund Citadel, is worth almost $42 billion, making him the world’s 34th richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The IRS’ apology comes after Griffin on Monday dropped a lawsuit against the agency and the U.S. Treasury Department that he had filed in December over the breach.
ProPublica didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The IRS said it has made “substantial investments in its data security to strengthen its safeguarding of taxpayer information.”
It added, “The agency believes that its actions and the resolution of this case will result in a stronger and more trustworthy process for safeguarding the personal information of all taxpayers.”
The CEO of a hospital operator that filed for bankruptcy protection in May will step down after failing to testify before a U.S. Senate panel.
Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre has overseen a network of some 30 hospitals around the country. The Texas-based company’s troubled recent history has drawn scrutiny from elected officials in New England, where some of its hospitals are located.
A spokesperson for de la Torre told the Associated Press Saturday that he “has amicably separated from Steward on mutually agreeable terms” and “will continue to be a tireless advocate for the improvement of reimbursement rates for the underprivileged patient population.”
A CBS News investigation that spanned nearly two years documented how private equity investors and de la Torre extracted hundreds of millions of dollars while healthcare workers and patients struggled to get the life-saving supplies they needed.
In August, the company closed two Massachusetts hospitals, leaving about 1,200 workers jobless, according to the state.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said earlier this month that Congress “will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America.”
De la Torre’s resignation is effective Oct. 1. The Senate approved a resolution on Wednesday that was intended to hold him in criminal contempt for failing to testify before a committee.
The Senate panel has been looking into Steward’s bankruptcy. De la Torre did not appear before it despite being issued a subpoena. The resolution refers the matter to a federal prosecutor.
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Biden says Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s killing a “measure of justice” for his many victims
Washington, D.C., – President Biden said on Saturday the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the overall leader of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, in a Friday airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon was a “measure of justice,” for his many victims.
In a statement released by the White House, Mr. Biden said “Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror,” including thousands of Israelis and Lebanese civilians. Nasrallah’s killing, which the statement said took place in the broader context of the conflict that began with Hamas’s massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, happened after the Hezbollah leader “made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a “northern front” against Israel.”
Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones across Lebanon’s southern border into Israel for almost a year amid the country’s war with Hamas.
Nasrallah was killed in a series of massive explosions targeting leaders of the militant group, which started with numerous pagers exploding across Lebanon on Sept. 18 killing at least 12 people — including members of the militant group Hezbollah and two children — and wounding several thousand, according to Lebanon’s public health minister.
Strikes escalated in recent days, with one senior U.S. administration official calling the situation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon “delicate and dangerous.” More than 500 people were killed in Lebanon on Monday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, as missiles slammed into residential buildings. Israel said it was targeting Hezbollah weapons hidden in the building.
Tensions in the Middle East have engulfed Mr. Biden’s last – and his final – year of presidency. His administration has said the U.S. “fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups,” and he has directed the Secretary of Defense “to further enhance” the defense posture of U.S. military forces in the Middle East.
Mr. Biden said in the statement ultimately his administration aims to de-escalate the ongoing conflicts through diplomatic means.
During his final speech to the United Nations General Assembly as president on Thursday Mr. Biden said, “full scale war is not in anyone’s interest.”
