Treasury cancels Booz Allen contracts after employee leaked

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday he was canceling all transactions. Department of Treasury contract with consulting firm Booz Allen HamiltonOne of his employees leaked the tax records of President Donald Trump and billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to media outlets.

Following the Treasury Department’s announcement, Booz Allen Hamilton’s stock price fell 8%.

The department said it currently has 31 separate contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton totaling $4.8 million in annual expenses and $21 million in total liabilities.

“President Trump has charged his cabinet with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, and canceling these contracts is an important step to increase Americans’ trust in government,” Bessent said in a statement. he said.

“Booz Allen failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including confidential taxpayer information it accessed through contracts with the Internal Revenue Service,” he said.

Between 2018 and 2020, the Department reported that Booz Allen employees Charles Edward Littlejohn “stole and leaked confidential tax returns and refund information of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers.”

According to the IRS, the data breach affected approximately 406,000 taxpayers.

Littlejohn, 40, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to disclosure of tax return information.

He admitted that Trump’s tax records were leaked to the New York Times. He also admitted that records about wealthy people were leaked to the news outlet ProPublica.

He was sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison in January 2024.

CNBC has requested comment from Booz Allen.