Posted on 04/22/2002 10:00:48 PM PDT by Kay Soze
IRS Official to Judicial Watch: Clinton Enemies Were Audited Carl Limbacher, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
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:
Leak
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.
Quite an Enemies List
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 political nature of the Judicial Watch's audit seems particularly blatant.
"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."
O"Reilly could really boost his career suing Bill on this!
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."
Speakng from experience, at least Lars Erik Nelson was good for one thing, if one hapened to find oneself out of toilet tissue, one of his columns would come in quite handy...
I try not to speak ill of the dead, so I'm just going to shut up.
The last I heard, they were still reading them!....:-)
Isn’t this illegal? If it is, why isn’t someone in jail?
Well, that all depends on what type of country this is.
Free countries wouldn't do anything.
Corrupt, oppressive countries on the other hand....
That's very easy:
One set of rules for the masters, one set of rules for the subjects. You know, the standard arrangement of all countries that aren't free.
And, in fact, one of the articles of impeachment drafted against Nixon was for abuse of the IRS.
Clinton, on the other hand, was given a complete pass ... even though it was abundantly clear he was using the IRS to harass anyone crtical of him and his administration.
So clear, in fact, that the same democRAT who wrote the IRS abuse article of impeachment against Nixon was quoted, after our CORRUPT Senate acquitted Clinton, as saying Clinton's abuse of the IRS and FBI is MUCH WORSE than anything Nixon did and that he should be impeached AGAIN because of it.
Do you have any sources to back up your claim?
Yes, it did under the Clinton administration. And according to senior IRS official Paul Breslan's own admission, the audit was a politically motivated witch hunt designed to intimidate those who would dare question their masters.
So, your guy gets in office. And he's going to clean up Washington and stop all the horrible abuses of the previous administration. So does he end the audit? No. Does the audit continue? Yes, and even worse, it is actively used for more intimidation.
Notice the MO established by the IRS earlier during the audit:
"Worse still, each time Judicial Watch seemed to make legal headway against the White House, the IRS ratcheted up the pressure."
Later we see this:
"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."
Hmmmm.... Beginning to see a pattern here???
You know, people voted for a different administration for a reason. They didn't like the lies and corruption among other things. That's why there are elections in the first place. People want things to CHANGE. If its going to be business as usual, and corrupt practices are going to continue anyway just because someone else started them, why should anyone bother voting for your guy?
Where exactly did he say that?
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