| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
Posted on 04/18/2002 10:49:16 AM PDT by FreedominJesusChrist
For Immediate Release
Apr 18, 2002
Press Office: 202-646-5172
JUDICIAL WATCH FIGHTS CLINTON IRS ATTEMPTED AUDIT
IRS OFFICIAL ADMITS: “WHAT DO YOU EXPECT WHEN YOU SUE THE PRESIDENT?”
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the non-profit educational foundation that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it was fighting in court an audit attempt instituted by the Clinton IRS in retaliation for Judicial Watch’s litigation against President Clinton. Judicial Watch first received notice of an attempted IRS audit on October 9, 1998, a few days after its “Interim Impeachment Report,” which called for Bill Clinton’s impeachment for misuse of the IRS, was officially made part of the Congressional record. The IRS’s initial audit letter demanded that Judicial Watch “[p]rovide the names and addresses of the directors and their relationship to any political party or political groups.” In January, 1999, an IRS official admitted to Judicial Watch representatives, in the context of the propriety of the audit, “What do you expect when you sue the President?” Another IRS official admitted in June, 1999, that the political affiliations of Judicial Watch’s directors is a factor in any IRS audit.
After Judicial Watch scored legal victories against the Clinton Administration, Judicial Watch received audit notices and warnings from the IRS. For instance, immediately following its uncovering of the Clinton-Gore White House e-mail scandal in February, 2000, Judicial Watch lawyers received a call from an IRS official to inform them that Judicial Watch was still on the IRS’s “radar screen.” The IRS finally agreed to defer on deciding whether to audit Judicial Watch until after the Clinton Administration ended. Despite this agreement, in one of the last acts of the Clinton Administration, the IRS sent Judicial Watch another audit notice on January 8, 2001. The IRS also sent new audit notices throughout 2001 after Judicial Watch criticized IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti. Rossotti is a Clinton appointee who “inexplicably” continues to serve under President Bush. In addition to presiding over the audits of perceived critics of the Clinton Administration, Judicial Watch requested criminal and civil investigations of Rossotti for his criminal conflict of interest in holding stock in a company he founded, AMS, while it did business with the IRS.
Judicial Watch now is fighting the attempted audit in federal courts in the District of Columbia and Maryland. As Robert Novak reports in his April 18th column, despite repeated requests to Attorney General Ashcroft to investigate, his Bush Justice Department has thus far refused to do so. (See Judicial Watch's letter to Attorney General John Aschroft) Instead, in the context of Judicial Watch’s lawsuit against the Cheney Energy Task Force, a Bush Administration official told Novak, “I don't know what we are going to do with this Klayman.” A copy of Judicial Watch’s complaint against IRS officials is available by clicking here.
“Judicial Watch has no objection to IRS audits at the proper time and place, under correct, non-political circumstances. We have nothing to hide. But when we were told that we were being audited because we sued Bill Clinton, we had no choice but to stand up and fight in court. Now, for its own reasons, the Bush Administration is content to let Clinton appointee Rossotti continue to harass Judicial Watch. Our lawsuits in response are intended not only to protect Judicial Watch, but are for the good of all Americans,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.
© Copyright 1997-2002, Judicial Watch, Inc.
Why don't you ask your friends at Judicial Watch to pitch in and lay all the cards on the table? Then maybe you and I can solve this mess.
Let's first stop the cover-up! Cooperate with the IRS! Trust the American people!
I thought it was so that the bank would know that the person is the one actually entitled to the funds, and not a thief trying to get someone else's money.
If I go to my local bank where they know me, I don't have to show ID.
.........................................................
SUBJECT: PROPOSED IRS AUDIT AND JUDICIAL WATCH LAWSUIT
Dear Friend and Supporter:
Your Judicial Watch attorneys, investigators and staff are now engaged in our most intense and important battle ever.
Because you have partnered with and supported us, you deserve to know all the facts about this crucial fight to uphold the rule of law against the most oppressive and corrupt government agency in American history.
By now, you may have read or heard that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Clinton appointee, Charles Rossotti, has attempted to audit Judicial Watch, and that they have demanded we turn over to them records regarding contributions you have made to us. (SEE ATTACHMENT, requires Adobe Acrobat).
Please do not panic. First , I pledge that, pursuant to law, it will be “over my dead body” before I release your name to the IRS. Second, you deserve to know the whole story behind the unlawful IRS actions which we are fighting.
Like most criminal behavior of the past decade, this story begins in the Clinton White House. You remember that nine years ago Clinton friend, business partner, and White House Counsel, Vince Foster turned up dead under very questionable circumstances.
Our friend, colleague and clients, Joseph Farah and the Western Journalism Center (“WJC”), helped blow the story wide open and people understandably began to pose hard questions to the Clintons. Just as the heat was being placed on the Clintons, the IRS began an audit of the WJC to intimidate, harass, and destroy Joseph Farah and WJC. Judicial Watch, with the help of supporters like you, came to their legal defense.
During the course of our investigation and lawsuit for WJC and Joseph Farah, we learned -- and obtained conclusive evidence -- that, the IRS’ actions were ordered by President Clinton in retaliation for the WJC’s work. In fact, we obtained, in court litigation, the documents which prove this. Some of them are enclosed. (SEE ATTACHMENT).
In 1998, along with Congressman Bob Barr and others, Judicial Watch conceived of the concept of impeaching Bill Clinton not only for Monica Lewinsky, Chinagate, and Filegate, but also his misuse of the IRS and other crimes while in office. Again, thanks to the financial help of our supporters, we compiled and released the most damning collection of evidence ever, which required Clinton’s impeachment, conviction, and removal from office. (See www.JudicialWatch.org)
The explosive document, entitled the “Interim Report: Crimes and Other Offenses Committed by President Bill Clinton Warranting His Impeachment and Removal from Elected Office,” hit the Clinton White House hard on September 28, 1998, at the height of the House Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearings. Within hours, it became powerful and credible evidence for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, detailing his ongoing criminal campaign of retribution and retaliation against his perceived enemies.
Along with Clinton’s misuse of the IRS, we documented other crimes including “Chinagate” and “Filegate.”
One week later, this report was accepted into the historic, permanent, Congressional Record.
Four days after our impeachment report made history, we received notice that we were to join a growing list of individuals and groups targeted for IRS harassment and retribution for perceived anti-Clinton activities. Our audit letter was received October 9, 1998.
Among other conservative activist organizations and individuals targeted by the Clintons, through their IRS attack dogs, were the National Rifle Association, the Heritage Foundation, and Judicial Watch clients Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, former White House Travel Office Director Billy Dale, and Katherine Prudhomme, to name just a few.
Yet, liberal groups were exempt from such treatment! Not one of the liberal groups was audited! For example, Jesse Jackson’s accountant still proudly proclaims that, after 18 years, his Rainbow-P.U.S.H. Coalition has still never been audited by the IRS, despite the fact that Jackson’s mistress received thousands in “hush money” payments from the organization.
The IRS’ audit notice to Judicial Watch included numerous demands for information. As further proof that this was a politically motivated attack, one request was for us to provide a list of our directors and their relationship to any political party! (SEE ATTACHMENT). That means they wanted to know, in violation of my constitutional rights, who I voted for and all about my personal political activities.
Correspondence, calls and meetings with various IRS managers and officials failed to stop their criminal attacks. At one meeting, a cocky, arrogant, Clinton “Rossotti-IRS” henchman, referring to the attempted audit, went so far as to bluntly state: “What do you expect when you sue the President?” We had four witnesses at this meeting who will swear to this under oath.
Since that day, no one at the IRS has ever denied that this threat was made!
While Clinton had not invented this form of illegal attack, he certainly elevated it to a criminal art form, using it repeatedly during his eight scandalous years in office.
Every time Judicial Watch made a breakthrough uncovering another Clinton crime, IRS pressure against us was increased.
In February, 2000 Sheryl Hall, then a White House employee, revealed under oath that the Clintons were hiding email evidence in the Filegate and other scandal cases. This Judicial Watch-exposed scandal became known as “Emailgate.” This legal victory resulted in a call from an IRS official in Baltimore to our attorney reminding us that we were still on the Rossotti-IRS “radar screen” for audit. It was a thinly veiled threat.
Near the end of the next month (March, 2000), Judicial Watch won an unprecedented court ruling against President Clinton when Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that Clinton had committed a crime when he violated the Privacy Act rights of our client, Kathleen Willey, a woman who had been sexually harassed by the President. Like clockwork, a week later, another call from the Clinton IRS. The agent again threatened the wrath, lost time, and expense of an IRS audit.
In April, 2000, we filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to get to the truth about IRS criminal actions against conservative and activist groups and individuals. The Clinton IRS responded, not by complying with our legally-issued FOIA request, but instead with another letter indicating they wanted yet more audit information than previously demanded.
In June, 2000, we wrote a letter to IRS officials detailing their misconduct and threatening legal action. Our letter requested that the IRS delay any action until a new administration took office. While they begrudgingly agreed to a delay, Rossotti and his IRS accomplices went back on their agreement, not coincidentally while the Clintons were still in office, in early January, 2001, with a third Notice of Proposed Audit. Like its last-minute pardon of Marc Rich, the Clinton IRS tried to set in motion an audit against Judicial Watch in its dying days.
During the summer of 2001, we filed a new suit regarding the criminal conflict of interest of Clinton’s IRS Commissioner, Charles Rossotti. In his final days in office, Bill Clinton had given Rossotti an illegal waiver (akin to a pardon) to continue to do business, as IRS Commissioner, with a company Rossotti owned. You may recall our report to you on this matter and the fact that we collected tens of thousands of petitions asking President Bush to fire Rossotti for illegal business dealings between his company, American Management System (AMS), and the IRS, as well as his role in the illegal audits. We and others revealed that Rossotti has a conflict because he is the founder of AMS, owned millions of dollars of stock in AMS, and AMS was awarded lucrative contracts with the IRS.
In a Judicial Watch victory, our efforts forced Rossotti to sell his stock in AMS! But, in another tit-for-tat retaliatory reaction, the next IRS demands were served on me, personally, requiring 23 additional categories of documents in yet another threat of an even bigger audit. Despite Rossotti’s criminal conflict of interest, and the illegal IRS audits of conservative groups and Judicial Watch clients, the Bush Administration has not fired Rossotti, and he continues to run the agency as if it were still under the Clinton administration. His continued desire to audit Judicial Watch is obviously related to Hillary Clinton’s expected race for the Presidency in 2004.
From these episodes (and there have been many more) you can see a clear pattern of vicious attack and criminal behavior. But there is even more!
Twice in the last few weeks, we’ve been paid visits by Rossotti’s IRS agent goons, who showed up wearing IRS badges and in loud voices announced their presence. The reason for the visit? They claimed a need to personally serve us various demands-- demands which would normally, even if valid, be presented quietly through one of our attorneys. The real reason for the visit to our office was to scare our loyal staff.
At present, if we were to ever comply with their outrageous demands an IRS audit would cost a million or more dollars and take two, possibly three years to complete. Providing them the records, documents, and files they have demanded would fill several trucks!
The time and expense involved would also divert us from our mission of bringing the Clintons and Rossotti and other corrupt government officials to justice!
Quite simply, Rossotti and his IRS henchmen insist we provide them every document and financial record we have ever produced. Yet, they have not charged us with one single violation of law – because they cannot do so! And, I can assure you, they would find our records to be squeaky clean.
Congress abolished the Independent Counsel. Some of its more notorious members (Congressman Condit, Senator Torricelli, Senator Clinton and others) have earned our attention, so you can be sure they would love to have Rossotti and the IRS attack and harm Judicial Watch.
During the past year we have also been forced to strongly object to the Bush Administration’s failure to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton and other corrupt politicians responsible for their crimes while in office. Is this because President Bush, himself, fears Clinton retaliation if he moved forward with investigations and prosecutions?
We know that the Democrats may still have access to the FBI files concerning officials of the last Bush Administration. President Bush says that it is time for us to “move on,” and put the Clinton era behind us without justice being done. I do not share President Bush’s desire to move on. Nor do you. . .
I believe that you want us to bring closure to the Clinton decade of scandal with both Clintons, and Al Gore, held legally responsible for their many, many criminal actions. The Independent Counsel closed up shop without filing charges, Congress wouldn’t act, and now, the Bush Justice Department won’t act, either!
We have asked Attorney General Ashcroft to pursue a criminal investigation of Charles Rossotti and his cronies, the Rossotti IRS and others who seek to keep us from our work against the corrupt Clintons, and Rossotti. As they have in every other case involving a Clinton Administration criminal (including Janet Reno, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and others), the Bush Justice Department has opposed our actions.
That leaves the job to Judicial Watch! And each week we move closer and closer to bringing the Clintons and other high government officials, like Rossotti, to justice!
It is also my belief that the Bush Administration is also unwilling to help you and us by investigating Rossotti’s and the IRS’ illegal, criminal audits, because we are truly non-partisan and willing to hold all government officials to high standards. Our successful legal actions against Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force to open up his secret meetings were met with disapproval by the Bush White House. The Bush White House thought that because we are conservative, Judicial Watch would look the other way and not hold it accountable under the same standards to which we held the Clinton White House.
Similarly, our successful complaints against some Republican Party fundraising practices (i.e. the recent sale of national security briefings for political campaign contributions, which copied the worst Clinton era techniques by selling meetings with senior Bush administration officials for campaign contributions), were criticized by party hacks.
My friend, columnist Robert Novak, shared with me that after church on a recent Sunday, he was approached by an official from the Bush Administration. That person asked, “What are we going to do about this Larry Klayman [and his Judicial Watch].”
This helps explain why the Bush administration and Republicans are content to sit back and watch Bill Clinton’s IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti criminally harass, intimidate, and try to hurt Judicial Watch and you.
Well, I’m going to fight Rossotti and the IRS! And I hope you’ll help me.
In response to Rossotti’s and the Clintons’ criminal actions, we filed suit to protect your donor records, our clients’ files and repel the assaults. Soon, the courts will hear our arguments and the complete evidence of Clinton/Rossotti IRS crimes will be released. Our civil claims seek large damages from Rossotti and other defendants. When we win a judgment, we could recover millions in damages and penalties.
But, as importantly, a Judicial Watch victory will put an end – once and for all – to politically-motivated criminal audits and other IRS abuses!
Will you help me win this important fight? Will you support our legal actions to clean up the most criminally corrupt government agency in American history, the IRS – whose officials truly believe they are above the law?
Protecting our privacy, independence and constitutional rights will cost millions of dollars. The extra legal and accounting work, which must begin immediately, will cost over $150,000 in time and expense per month for the near future.
We’ve already spent over $400,000 in legal time and expenses fighting the IRS attempts to illegally audit us. (Needless to say, this was not a planned budget expense.)
Will you send us a generous contribution to fund this battle? Will you please send us a gift of $250, $500 or even $1000? I realize this is a great deal of money, but we have never been in a more serious and important fight with a corrupt government agency. And we now need your extra support to fight this battle to a successful conclusion, for the good of you, Judicial Watch and all Americans!
If you can only afford to send $100 or $50, then of course, that would help too. But we are up against powerful forces.
But, with your help, we can and will win. Please, help us help you.
Thank you. Because no one is above the law!
Sincerely,
Larry Klayman Chairman and General Counsel
(Click Here to Contribute)
P.S. – Judicial Watch has no objection to an IRS audit at the proper time and place. But when IRS officials admit that they’re trying to audit us just because we sued President Clinton, and now Commissioner Rossotti, we will fight this illegal and criminal act. Indeed, the IRS’ criminal behavior will give us a golden opportunity to clean up corruption at this most corrupt government agency in American history!
P.P.S. – Once again, you have my word that I will legally “fight to the death” to keep the IRS at bay and keep them from getting your name from us. (SEE ATTACHMENT). And we aim to stop them once and for all from hurting people who challenge government abuse and corruption! We will not let Clinton appointee Charles Rossotti use the power of the IRS to harass us for suing the Clintons, and himself, as well as calling for his firing by the Bush administration. Please let me know you are behind us with a gift for as much as you can afford today. Thank you again.
Prior to the 1930's nobody had to have a license to marry, fish, drive a car, or for banking purposes. After the Public Salaries Tax Act and Social Security Act was implemented in place in the later 1930's, citizens became known as "consumers" which is a commercial term.
And as a commercial entity, you have privileges, and not rights! Next time, you get a speeding ticket, challenge it and while you're at it take a good look at the flag in the courtroom. You'll notice the yellow trim on the edges which indiciate that the court is a military court under the Commander in Chief of the U.S. and not a courtroom to hear constitutional issues of individual rights. They don't care about your rights because you are in a court under marshal law which has been in existence since the death of our republic in 1861 by Abe Lincoln. Since that time, the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 was implemented for revenue purposes and was imposed on everybody. Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the wording of this act in 1933 which made all citizens of the united States of America regarded as enemies within the United States. See Executive Order No. 2040, March 9, 1933 and reinforced by Congress by Title 12 U.S.C. A. Sec. 95(b).
It is truly touching that at the end of Mr. Klayman's lengthy description of matters involving the very loftiest of principles, he reserved some space so that he could advise his readers of a way in which they could become personally involved in this most important of all causes.
STOP THE COVER-UP.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/cases/80/amendedcomp.htm
Yep, single handedly 'eww' is going to put an end to the IRS abuses,etc. And this has never been accomplished by others over the many years yet move over and let 'eww' on the job....
Protecting our privacy, independence and constitutional rights will cost millions of dollars. The extra legal and accounting work, which must begin immediately, will cost over $150,000 in time and expense per month for the near future.
We’ve already spent over $400,000 in legal time and expenses fighting the IRS attempts to illegally audit us. (Needless to say, this was not a planned budget expense.)
Had the 'eww' who claims to be squeaky clean complied and got on with the audit in 98 it would most likely would be over and at a much reduced cost. Of course he's out here pleading for money and never once has told the donors that he had $11,095,450 in net assets/fund balances at the end of 2000 according to his 990 filing. Why not use those funds...... Wouldn't be prudent would it?
GO AUDIT GO
dig them bones up..... find them bullet holes
I also saw the pleading. It seems Judicial Watch is relying heavily on the Fifth Amendment. I mentioned that fear of mine in an earlier post.
I wonder if the Sixteenth Amendment has any role to play in any of this.
Don't plead the Fifth, Judicial Watch! Come clean with the American people.
deport, of course you are right. That is the purpose of an audit ... to verify that sources of income and expenses are authentic. I've been audited by the IRS, and they usually request documentation bolstering some income source or expense I've presented in calculating my tax liability. I've sent $500 or so to Klayman in '97 - '99, and if some IRS auditor calls me as a random verification of JW's veracity in revenue source, so be it. Big deal, if the IRS calls one of my customers to verify an unclear transaction, that's what they do and my customer will have no ill perception of me - assuming the transaction was kosher, that is.
There are two issues here. Was the audit politically motivated? From that Clinton crime syndicate - the odds are pretty high that is was/is. OK, that's abuse of power, but that's sadly water over the bridge for all practical purposes. Is Judicial Watch nonetheless responsible for fully complying with the order and demonstrating a clean, ethical and legal financial operation? Damn right they are. They are a $26 million annual enterprise, they warrant scrutiny - not only from entities that govern their special and beneficial tax status, but from those of us who sent money to them in good faith.
Imagine if one of Larry's opponents did that! Why, he'd file a lawsuit for judge shopping!
Protecting our privacy, independence and constitutional rights will cost millions of dollars. The extra legal and accounting work, which must begin immediately, will cost over $150,000 in time and expense per month for the near future.
One has to wonder how much is time and how much is actual expense. I bet them big-city lawyer boys make a purty penny nowadays, don't you?
never once has told the donors that he had $11,095,450 in net assets/fund balances at the end of 2000 according to his 990 filing.
And poor little Linda Tripp lost her house 'cause she couldn't pay the mortgage. Looks like good old Larry would've given her a job or something, doesn't it?
He is right that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to financial transactions because we use the Federal Reserve's private notes.
However, the NRCC contends that the ethics group owes them a mailing list of 45,000 names that conservative activists say is worth up to $20,000. NRCC estimates that the names are worth between 20 and 50 cents each.
NRCC officials say they have traded mailing lists with Judicial Watch over the last year-and-a-half, but stopped doing so in August after the group ran up a large debt of 104,000 names that it still hasn’t fully repaid. The trades were supposed to have an equal number of names. ......
But business documents from National Response List Marketing (NRLM) Inc., a direct mail services company based in Alexandria, Va., show the company brokered the transactions between the NRCC and Judicial Watch since the fall of 1999. DeLay is a de facto member of the NRCC.
The documents show that Judicial Watch owed the NRCC the names of 10,000 potential supporters in October of that year, a debt that steadily climbed to over 100,000 names by the following summer.
At that time, Patty Catano, an NRCC official, sent a handwritten note to NRLM, the mail broker: “Sorry, but I will have to decline [an impending trade with Judicial Watch] due to exchange balance [and] quantity.”
In political fundraising circles mailing lists are valuable commodities because they contain donor information that can be turned into millions of dollars in contributions. The value of a list depends on how likely the names will translate into future donors.
The documents also clearly contradict Klayman’s claim that his group did not send any lists to the NRCC. [end snip]
Judicial Watch has denied that claim. You should know better.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.