IRS Official to Judicial Watch: Clinton Enemies Were Audited

IRS Official to Judicial Watch: Clinton Enemies Were Audited Carl Limbacher, NewsMax.com

An official with the Internal Revenue Service has admitted that legal opponents of former President Bill Clinton were singled out for tax audits, according to court documents made public this week. "What do you expect when you sue the president?" senior IRS official Paul Breslan told Judicial Watch, the Washington-based legal watchdog group that had filed 50-plus legal actions against the Clinton administration and subsequently found itself in the IRS's cross hairs.

Breslan's quote is cited in Judicial Watch's complaint against the tax agency, based on a host of what look to be politically inspired audits that make the worst abuses of the Nixon administration appear puny by comparison.

"There were literally six witnesses in the room when Breslan told us we should have expected an audit," Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman revealed to NewsMax.com. "Four of them were lawyers."

The legal group became the target of an IRS audit in 1998, just four days after it filed an independent impeachment report against Clinton, based on years of investigation into everything from Chinagate to the Paula Jones case.

But Judicial Watch wasn't alone. Witnesses bearing damaging testimony against the president were a favorite target of the Clinton IRS. Those singled out for audits include:

The Jones case, which would eventually lead to Clinton's impeachment, was of particular interest to the IRS, which apparently leaked her confidential tax returns to the late New York Daily News reporter Lars Erik Nelson.

In a September 1997 column Nelson revealed details from Jones' filing to bolster claims that she was profiting from her sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton.

In a subsequent interview with NewsMax.com's Carl Limbacher (then with the Washington Weekly), Nelson insisted somewhat implausibly that a "friend" of Jones had come across her tax return during a visit to her home and decided to go public with the secrets.

As the Judicial Watch complaint notes, the Clinton IRS also went after organizations and even media companies it perceived as politically hostile, including:

The National Rifle Association, The Heritage Foundation, The National Review, The American Spectator, Freedom Alliance, National Center for Public Policy Research, American Policy Center, American Cause, Citizens Against Government Waste, Citizens for Honest Government, Progress and Freedom Foundation, Concerned Women for America and the San Diego Chapter of Christian Coalition.

Fox News Channel analyst Bill O'Reilly, a frequent critic of Bill and Hillary Clinton, has also pointed out how the IRS has repeatedly audited him.

"The IRS asked for our political affiliations in the first notice of audit," Klayman told NewsMax.

When he questioned why auditors wanted to know about the group's political ties, an IRS district director said the information had been deemed "relevant."

Worse still, each time Judicial Watch seemed to make legal headway against the White House, the IRS ratcheted up the pressure.

"When we would accomplish something big, like the criminal finding by Judge Royce Lamberth against Clinton in the Kathleen Willey Privacy Act case, our lawyers would get a call saying, 'We just want you to know that Judicial Watch is still on the IRS's radar screen,'" Klayman said.

"The same thing happened when we revealed the White House e-mail scandal," he added.

Shockingly, the IRS's intimidation tactics continue into the Bush administration, which has failed to sack Clinton's IRS Commissioner Charles Rosotti.

After Judicial Watch won the release of thousands of pages of documents from Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force last month, a badge-wearing IRS agent showed up at the group's offices.

A personal meeting between Klayman and Bush Justice Department Criminal Division chief Michael Chertoff, who led the Senate investigation into the Clintons' Whitewater abuses, failed to yield any interest in pursuing IRS abuses, which now threaten to tarnish the Bush administration.

When noted columnist Robert Novak inquired of the Justice Department about Judicial Watch's IRS complaint, he was told by a department official, "I don't know what we are going to do with this Klayman."

"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," Klayman said. "By leaving Charles Rossotti as IRS commissioner, Bush obviously is sending a signal that political audits are fine with him."

Have you, of all people, forgotten Bill Clinton's sworn testimony?

Of course not. I was simply pointing out the inconsistency in your apparently trusting sworn testimony when it suits you but being seemingly unwilling to trust sworn testimony (by people that we supposedly admire like Linda Tripp and Janowski) when it related to the crimes of the Clinton Administration and DNC, and didn't suit you.

I say again, post it right here -- for all the world to see -- EXACTLY where I said Linda Tripp wasn't telling the truth. My exact words -- not something YOU assumed.

I not going to play your word games and definition games any more, Howlin. You made the statement on a previous thread that people lie under oath immediately after you were asked about the testimony of Linda Tripp and many of the other people Klayman deposed in the Filegate scandal. Here is the exchange that occurred between us (your statements are in italics):

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You're NOT preposing that Bush and Ashcroft go to court on Larry Klayman's word alone, are you?

But it isn't Klayman's word ... its the sworn word of the people deposed. For example, in the Filegate case he has
1. The testimony of Linda Tripp, former executive assistant in the White House Counsel’s Office, that she observed FBI files of Republicans being loaded onto a White House computer.
2. Tripp’s testimony that she overheard William Kennedy, former Rose Law Firm partner of Hillary Clinton and then associate White House counsel, and Marsha Scott, the first lady’s confidante, discussing Hillary Clinton’s plan to share the FBI files on a computer database with the Democratic National Committee.
3. The testimony of Deborah Perroy, a White House whistle-blower, that operatives of Clinton director of security for White House personnel Craig Livingstone were going through FBI and CIA files of Republicans and that it was Hillary Clinton who hired and directed Livingstone.
4. The sworn testimony of Sherry Rowlands (“friend” of Clinton spinmaster and pollster Dick Morris) that Morris admitted to her that Hillary Clinton was the mastermind of Filegate.
5. The Fifth Amendment claims of Clinton security assistant Anthony Marceca, where he refused to answer questions about the misuse of FBI files and the role of Hillary Clinton in their misuse, which create “evidentiary inferences” that Filegate happened and the first lady was involved.
6. The testimony by Tripp identifying FBI files of Republicans in the office of Kennedy, who supervised Livingstone and Marceca.
7. The testimony of Kennedy’s wife, Leslie Gail Kennedy, that her husband loaded FBI files onto a computer database on a laptop computer while sitting at their kitchen table.
8. The admission by Assistant White House Counsel Michelle Peterson that she and the Clinton White House planned to stall the Filegate case until after the Clintons left office.
9. Former White House counsel and longtime friend of Hillary Clinton Bernard Nussbaum’s admission to former FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene that Hillary Clinton strongly recommended Livingstone for his security job. Tripp, among others, testified that Livingstone bragged about being hired by and working for Hillary Clinton. Sheryl Hall, another White House whistle-blower, testified that Livingstone worked for Hillary Clinton.
10. Photographs of Hillary Clinton with Livingstone, refuting Mrs. Clinton’s claims that she does not know Livingstone.
11. Sign-out logs showing a six-month gap (akin to President Nixon’s infamous 18-minute tape gap) in detailing who removed which FBI files from the White House Office of Personnel Security.
You want to count the number of FELONIES suggested by those depostions. And you don't want Ashcroft to investigate? You are again arguing like a democRAT. Beware.

You cannot possibly be dumb enough to believe that any SWORN TESTIMONY cannot possibly be a lie. I am a court reporter; my job is to put people under oath and watch them lie.

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And you want us to believe that your reply doesn't indicate a belief that Tripp's (and the other's) testimony is a lie ... especially given the fact that you recently stated that Filegate (among other scandals) was investigated and found to be about "nothing"? Since that would be counter to what Tripp was alleging in her testimony, what other conclusion are we to draw about your opinion of Tripp's testimony then that you don't believe her? Sorry ... but your intent was obvious ... to discredit Tripp and the others testimony so you could discredit Klayman.

You think you can hide behind "exact" words and that we will ignore the intent of what you say and the inconsistencies in what you say. You thought you could use such tactics when you at first claimed you never said Brown wasn't murdered ... implying to all that read the thread that you might believe he was murdered. Too bad the internet has a memory and in a moment of candor you had previously admitted your real feelings to someone about the Brown case.

We have a perfect right to suspect your intentions ... especially since you play word games ... just like Clinton and his people did.

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