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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.
You cannot possibly be this dumb. Of course they do
The issue here is Due Process and flagrant violations of the right to privacy of JW as well as their contributors regardless of those financially supporting JW or not!
Via
FEDEX
URGENT
March 8, 2002
The Honorable John Ashcroft
Attorney General of the United
States
U.S. Department of
Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 5133
Washington, DC 20530
Re: Political IRS Audit of Judicial Watch and Bush
Justice Department Misconduct.
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
On January 29, 2001, Judicial Watch forwarded to you and your staff a complaint which requested a criminal investigation of attempts by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) during the Clinton administration to audit Judicial Watch, its clients, and a number of other conservative groups and individuals. After receipt of delivery of the complaint to your office, officers of Judicial Watch and its legal counsel met with Mr. David Israelite, your Deputy Chief of Staff, in lieu of the requested meeting with you. At the time, we were told that you were not available for meetings. Later, we were referred by Mr. Israelite to Mr. Michael Chertoff, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division.
During the meeting with Mr. Chertoff, we were assured that the Criminal Division would seriously consider our request for investigation. However, to date we have not received any indication that an investigation has been initiated. To the contrary, after one year of waiting, we have been ironically subject to further retaliation by the IRS, which continues to be run by a Clinton appointee, Commissioner Charles Rossotti. As you must know, Mr. Rossotti is the subject of a Judicial Watch criminal complaint as well for his actions in doing business, as IRS Commissioner, with his own company, AMS. See Exhibit 1. In the closing days of the Clinton administration, Mr. Rossotti received a waiver from the President, which sought, ex post facto, to absolve him of his criminal conflict of interest. This waiver had certain parallels with the pardons issued by President Clinton in and around this same time period.
To make matters worse, the Tax Division of the Bush Justice Department has participated in and furthered the illegal conduct of the IRS in retaliating against Judicial Watch for its public interest advocacy, which seeks to hold high public officials accountable for wrongdoing and corruption. For instance, after Judicial Watch filed a civil action seeking, among other relief, to enjoin the illegal audit, Stephen Gibson, Esq. and others of your Tax Division knowingly released our complaint, which had been filed under seal in order to avoid disclosure of the audit, to an Internet tax site, Tax Analysts. Tax Analysts then published the document. Public disclosure of this matter obviously harms Judicial Watch with its donors, among others. Confidential taxpayer information such as this is protected from public disclosure under 25 U.S.C. §§ 6103, 7213, with criminal penalties for improper release. I previously forwarded to you court pleadings which detail this improper disclosure. However, the retaliation did not cease.
Shortly after Judicial Watch moved for an order to show cause why the IRS and Bush Justice Department counsel should not be held in contempt, two IRS agents appeared in our offices and in loud voices sought to serve and did serve me with an administrative summons, which requested all of Judicial Watch’s records for the last eight years. In particular, the summons asks for all of our donor information as well as confidential employee files, among a burdensome and intrusive host of other documents. The service of process in our public lobby, with a number of employees present, was obviously intended to disclose to Judicial Watch employees that its directors were “in trouble” with the IRS. No attempt was made to contact our counsel, who could have quietly accepted service. As importantly, the service of the summons was improper, as it constituted an attempt to circumvent the jurisdiction of the court in our civil suit to adjudicate the legality of the audit. This retaliatory conduct by the IRS occurred with the full knowledge and complicity of your lawyers in the Tax Division.
On the heels of this act of retaliation, IRS officials sent a letter to Judicial Watch representing that they intended to contact third parties about the attempted audits. A copy this letter is attached as Exhibit 2. Obviously, the IRS was threatening to contact Judicial Watch donors, vendors and others, despite the pending civil suit which seeks to prevent the illegal attempted audits.
Judicial Watch would have expected this from the Clinton administration. However, now that the Bush administration is in office, the continuing efforts by the IRS and your Tax Division to harm Judicial Watch can be seen as part of a continuing campaign to chill our public interest advocacy against high government officials. As you know, Judicial Watch has filed and been successful in several ongoing lawsuits against the Bush administration and its Department of Justice. Just recently, for example, two judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia have severely criticized the Bush administration and its Justice Department for deliberate delay in obstructing lawsuits asking for the release of information and documents concerning the Cheney Energy Task Force. See Exhibit 3. Accordingly, the only logical way to explain your failure to investigate Judicial Watch’s charges of criminally improper IRS conduct, as well as your Tax Division having leaked the sealed civil complaint to the media, is that the Bush administration and its Justice Department fully support IRS efforts to harm us given our adversarial posture in court litigation. Widespread public knowledge that Judicial Watch is subject to audit would scare donors from contributing to our organization, which in turn would cut off resources to bring cases against the Bush administration.
While the lower court decided not to retain the seal on the complaint and related pleadings (after the complaint had already been leaked by your Tax Division), the case file remains sealed pending appeal of this order to the Fourth Circuit. And, while the lower court has entered an order keeping the case file sealed pending appeal, your Tax Division has argued to the Fourth Circuit to remove even the temporary seal, obviously in a further attempt to gain widespread publication of the attempted audits of Judicial Watch. Importantly, local court rules provide that the Fourth Circuit will automatically retain the temporary seal subject to the lower court’s order, pending appeal. Accordingly, the actions of your Tax Division evidence ongoing harassment of Judicial Watch, as its opposition is intended solely to run Judicial Watch’s legal fees and costs. See Exhibit 4.
During a recent appearance on Judicial Watch’s radio program, heard nationally from 12:00 to 2:00 P.M. on Saturdays, respected syndicated conservative columnist Robert Novak effectively confirmed the Bush administration’s efforts to silence Judicial Watch. While Mr. Novak is not aware of the IRS’ attempted audits and the complicity of your Tax Division, he revealed that he had recently been approached by a Justice Department official in church who told him that “[Klayman is] are not a favorite of the Department of Justice under this [Bush] administration,” “I don’t know what we are going to do with this Klayman..,” in the context of Judicial Watch’s litigation against the Bush administration. See Exhibit 5.
Should the civil complaint and related pleadings be published widely, as the Tax Division advocates, you will have to explain to the hundreds of thousands of Judicial Watch’s conservative supporters, and the American people as a whole, why the Bush administration and its Justice Department support the IRS’s improper actions.
In summary, we again ask for an investigation of this serious matter and would like to meet with you in this regard. While you have found the time to meet with lawyer lobbyists, such as George Salem, who sought to convince you not to seize the assets of his client, the Holy Land Foundation – which is a front for Islamic terrorists – you have not found time to commence an investigation of our concerns, much less meet with us, in over one year. See Exhibit 6. Nor have you exercised any supervisory control over, much less investigated, your Tax Division, which has opportunistically assisted Clinton appointed IRS Commissioner Rossotti and his minions in their improper endeavors to harm Judicial Watch.
Thank you for your cooperation and courtesy, as well as an immediate reply.
Sincerely,
JUDICIAL WATCH, INC.
Larry Klayman
Chairman and General Counsel
cc: U.S. Department of Justice
The Honorable Michael Chertoff
Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Division
Matthew Martins, Esq.
Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Division
Mr. David Ayers Chief of Staff to Attorney General Ashcroft
David Israelite, Esq. Deputy Chief of Staff to Attorney General
Counsel for Judicial Watch David Barmak, Esq. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, PC Alan Dye, Esq. Webster, Chamberlain & Bean
Main Entry: na·ive
Variant(s): or na·ïve /nä-'Ev/
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): na·iv·er; -est
Etymology: French naïve, feminine of naïf, from Old French,
inborn, natural, from Latin nativus native
Date: 1654
1 : marked by unaffected simplicity : ARTLESS, INGENUOUS
2 a : deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgment;
especially : CREDULOUS b : not previously subjected to
experimentation or a particular experimental situation
; also : not having
previously used a particular drug (as marijuana)
3 : SELF-TAUGHT, PRIMITIVE
synonym see NATURAL
- na·ive·ly or na·ïve·ly adverb
- na·ive·ness noun
You have a lot of growing up to do, little girl.
That was indeed great news. Palo, did you see my post #527 ie. Bitter Harvest? Great read.
I will say it again, Your political viewpoints, philosophies, or beliefs, should never be the Probable Cause that the Federal Government uses to audit or investigate you.
In America, we should be able to have the freedom of thought and political speech, and be able to live without the fear of retaliation for those beliefs. We do not live in a totalitarian state.
Southflank, if you think age has anything to do with what is being discussed here-I have many questions about this thread and Chinagate to discuss with you. Now Southflank, since you are insinuating that you (older folks) -know so much more then a younger person - than You Sir, reply to me when you're ready for my particular questions and we'll all see how quickly and intelligently you reply.
Can you do this Southflank? Are you old enough Southflank - to discuss, in depth - every aspect of this thread ---- and discuss - with me - in depth, every aspect of Bill Clinton's Chinagate? Now don't tarry Southflank, I'll be here awaiting your reply to my query Olderfolksouthflank. Thank you.
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