Read the full story: Daily Caller
A watchdog group filed a complaint against the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service Wednesday after the two agencies failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests for documentation of how they protect Americans’ private tax information from abuse by government attorneys. Cause of Action, a nonprofit government accountability group, filed the claim in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to force the agencies to disclose information regarding how Justice Department tax attorneys assigned to the White House are screened before gaining access to taxpayers’ confidential information. “Given the IRS’ track record of failing to protect confidential tax information, this lack of agency oversight is a threat to our privacy and democracy,” said Cause of Action President Dan Epstein in a statement. “Ethical and legal protocols at these agencies should be held to the highest standards, especially when government attorneys are accessing confidential taxpayer return information while intermittently leaving to work in the White House.” Cause of Action recently found that Justice Department tax attorneys, some of whom worked on the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative and Tea Party non-profit applicants during the 2010 and 2012 elections, now work in the White House giving legal advice.
