I hate to keep harping on the same point, but it's almost as if the fascist GOP knows they're probably not going to be able to pass very much legislation before the midterms, so they're determined to squeeze every ounce of authoritarianism and legalized political persecution they can into what is ostensibly, a reconciliation budget bill. Take for example this recent Intercept report revealing that hidden deep inside the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" is a provision that would drastically increase criminal penalties for whistleblowers who leak unauthorized disclosures of tax records, and those who “print or publish in any manner” leaked tax return information.
ttps://theintercept.com/2025/05/21/big-beautiful-bill-republican-tax-return-leaks/
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 recent 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 1,081 of the 1,082-page text circulated late Sunday — would double the maximum prison sentence for leaking tax returns to 10 years and increase possible fines from $5,000 to $250,000 per violation.
Boosting penalties for leakers may seem an odd fit for a budget bill, much like the “nonprofit killer” provision that was recently 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."
Obviously this is nowhere near as serious an issue as banning Medicaid coverage for gender affirming care, or carving a trillion dollars out of Medicaid and SNAP programs that keep labor class Americans alive, so you can give billionaire broligarchs like Peter Thiel more spare yacht money; there is however a lot of weird and repressive bullshit going on here. Most importantly, the proposed penalties for publishing leaked tax information is a clear attempt to suppress journalists and free speech rights in general; it almost certainly isn't constitutionally legal, although the jury is very much still out on how much that actually matters in Trump's brave new fascist America.
The other half of this story then is the reality that this provision is all part of a longstanding Republican grievance over Trump's leaked tax returns, and the maximum five year sentence given to the man who leaked them, Charles Littlejohn. You can check out the linked story for more details, but I would still advise against assuming this is purely just a genuflection to Swine Emperor Trump's bruised ego and vengeance complex. The reality is that what the fascist GOP is proposing here amounts to increased targeted of a form of modern whistleblowers, who are only denied that designation because they're targeting the secrets of a wealthy ruling class who employ their considerably financial power to dictate the political possibilities in our society. As climate crisis transforms into climate catastrophe, billionaires buy more Pig Empire governments, and undisclosed wealthy funders pay to disseminate anti-protest, fascist, and even eliminationist propaganda in our discourse, Charles Littlejohn will not be the last whistleblower exposing the tax records of our ruling classes; and the Republican Party clearly means to discourage that behavior with provisions like this one slipped into the reconciliation budget.
