JUDICIAL WATCH FIGHTS CLINTON IRS ATTEMPTED AUDIT

(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.

Klayman vs. Mom Suit

The following article is from the Washington Post. To access the article, go to Washington Post, and search for "Larry Klayman."

KLAYMAN CHRONICLES

Family Feud

Adversaries have described Larry Klayman as the sort of guy who would sue his mother. Turns out, he's the kind of guy who would sue his mother and take the case to trial.

The chairman of Judicial Watch, a crusading conservative with a yen for hardball and a knack for peppering Clintonites with litigation, now has Mom in his sights. Barring a last-minute settlement, Klayman's lawsuit against the seventysomething lady who brought him into this world goes to trial today in D.C. Superior Court.

The case is a spat about money. Klayman says his mother, Shirley Feinberg, reneged on a vow to cover the health-care costs of his grandmother, Feinberg's mom. According to Klayman, his now-deceased grandmother gave Feinberg tens of thousands of dollars that was supposed to be spent on his grandmother's hospital and nursing-home care.

But Feinberg has refused to part with the money, Klayman alleges in court filings, even though he incurred roughly $50,000 in expenses after he moved his grandmother from Pennsylvania to a Washington nursing home and later Georgetown University Hospital. He's suing to force his mother to fork over the cash.

Feinberg counters in court documents that her mother gave her the money, no strings attached. She says she was paying for her mother's care in Pennsylvania but opposed her son's decision to move her to Washington. She adds that she never agreed to pay medical bills that she says Klayman rang up because he neglected to win preapproval for his grandmother's treatment with her health insurer.

"I did not in March 1997, promise Larry Klayman that I would pay him for any medical or other expenses he might incur on behalf of my mother Yetta Goldberg," she stated in a sworn affidavit. "On the contrary," she continued, "on that occasion, Larry Klayman was verbally abusive to me and to my aunt (Yetta Goldberg's sister), which forced us to leave his house and go to a hotel for the night. Moreover, on this occasion, Larry Klayman's wife, Stephanie Klayman, was crying while Larry Klayman was screaming at my aunt and me."

A scene from "The Waltons" it isn't. In a May news release, Klayman stated that Yetta had raised him, and he accused his mother and stepfather of neglecting Yetta, misappropriating her life savings and allowing her health insurance to lapse. "We tried to settle it, we couldn't settle it," he said of the suit during an appearance that same month on the cable chat show "Hardball."

Although there is nothing quite so public as a trial, Klayman initially tried to keep this lawsuit a private matter. He kept his name off the title of the case by filing it under the name of his collection agency, Accounts Inc. But in May, Newsweek ran an item about the suit, provoking a volcanic Judicial Watch news release. The magazine "uses this information, which was obviously dug up by private investigators of the Clintons, to suggest that the Judicial Watch chairman will sue anyone, and to hurt Klayman by trampling on the memory of his grandmother. This is untrue, unfair and outrageous!" the release exclaimed. "Klayman looks to no one, other than God, for his guidance and direction."

Humble,

One thing that you will find out, if you haven't already, is that Larry Klayman's detractors love to insert sparse facts on these Judicial Watch Threads for the sole purpose of mud-slinging and discrediting Larry as a person.

First of all, Larry Klayman had every right to file suit against his mother; this was an obvious last resort for him. Larry Klayman sued his mother because she and his stepfather embezzled money that was intended for his grandmother's healthcare. The lawsuit was intended to be kept private, as it was a last resort to try to get his mother to pay back the money she stole.

Second, the lawsuit was intended to be kept private, in matter of speaking. Larry kept his name off the title of the lawsuit by filing it under the auspices of another name, Accounts Inc. After Newsweek Magazine ran a polemic piece about this lawsuit for the sole purpose of trying to smear Larry's reputation, Judicial Watch then ran a press release stating the facts of the case, as to not let Judicial Watch detractors and smearers get another final word in otherwise, or gossip about Judicial Watch wrongly.

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