Search Results for: inspector general

Washington, DC – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force the State Department to release ethics records for former Secretary of State Clinton and her staff.

Recently released emails demonstrate that Clinton Foundation donors may have received special access to Secretary Clinton. Those emails raise questions about whether she and members of her staff adequately addressed potential conflicts of interest. These records will help the public understand whether Secretary Clinton complied with the ethics agreement she signed before becoming Secretary, as well as how the State Department’s ethics office advised her and her staff regarding conflicts of interest.

CoA Institute submitted a FOIA request on August 24, 2016, but the State Department failed to produce any records responsive to the request well past the applicable time limits. In addition, the State Department Inspector General found that 47 percent of presidentially-appointed State Department officials failed to complete their mandatory ethics training during Secretary Clinton’s last full year in office.

Cause of Action Institute Vice President John Vecchione: “It appears that State Department officials during Secretary Clinton’s tenure did not take their ethics responsibilities seriously. Americans have a right to know whether Secretary Clinton and her aides at the State Department flouted ethics requirements in order to grant special treatment to Clinton Foundation supporters.”

In January 2009, during Sec. Clinton’s confirmation, she signed an agreement stating: “If confirmed as Secretary of State, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that has a direct and predictable effect upon [the Clinton Foundation], unless I first obtain a written waiver or qualify for a regulatory exemption.”

In its lawsuit, CoA Institute demands copies of recusals and ethics agreements for Secretary Clinton and members of her staff, any ethics waivers or exemptions they may have obtained from the State Department ethics office, and ethics office communications concerning Secretary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

The full complaint can be found HERE
The exhibits are available HERE
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Washington, DC – Today, Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate misconduct by a high-ranking political appointee, including inappropriate travel reimbursements and excessive spending on office renovations.

CoA Institute President and CEO, and former federal judge, Alfred J. Lechner, Jr.: “A high-ranking political appointee at the Department of Commerce must be held accountable for his rampant wasteful spending and misconduct. Reports of taxpayer-funded lavish foreign travel, luxury car service, and ‘over the top’ office renovations raise serious concerns. Such misconduct is beyond inappropriate and could even be criminal.  American taxpayers have the right to know whether such wasteful spending could be a more widespread problem at the agency.”

On September 8, 2016, the Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report detailing numerous instances of misconduct and wasteful spending. A high-ranking political appointee appears to have regularly used the U.S. Treasury as a slush fund by staying in luxury hotels and using luxury car services at taxpayers’ expense.

In one case, the employee traveled to Geneva, Switzerland where he stayed at a luxury hotel that cost around $1,150 per night, despite the allowable per diem being $340 per night. He was subsequently reimbursed 150 percent of the standard per diem rate for his entire stay, even though a portion of the trip was for personal travel. During the same trip, one of his staff members stayed in a room at a different hotel that was below the per diem rate.

Taxpayers also footed the bill for the employee to travel in luxury vehicles, including nearly $1,800 for an SUV provided by a luxury hotel during his two-day trip to Boston, Massachusetts.

The employee also spent an excessive amount of taxpayer money on his office renovations, likely violating the Anti-Deficiency Act. Despite Congress limiting office renovations to $5,000, the Department spent more than $50,000 on this political appointee’s office.  Shortly after assuming his role with the Department, the employee instructed his subordinates to make the space “reflective of [his] position.” Some subordinate employees were apparently fearful of losing their position if the renovations were not acceptable. According to the OIG report, renovations included new carpeting “chosen after consultation with an interior maintenance specialist” for a luxury hotel. An administrative official described these renovations as “over the top.”

In order to understand the full extent of the abuses, CoA Institute requests all of the materials compiled by the OIG for its report. The full FOIA request can be found here.

Washington, DC – Today, Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Department of State seeking information about Secretary Hillary Clinton’s interactions with the Department’s ethics office.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FOIA REQUEST

Recently released emails demonstrate that Clinton Foundation donors may have received special access to Secretary Clinton. These emails raise questions about whether she and members of her staff adequately addressed any potential conflicts of interest.

CoA Institute has requested copies of recusals and ethics agreements for Secretary Clinton and members of her staff, as well as any ethics waivers or exemptions they obtained from the State Department’s ethics office. The FOIA request also seeks records of advice the ethics office provided to Secretary Clinton, as well as certain communications with the Office of Government Ethics.

 Cause of Action President and CEO, and former federal judge, Alfred J. Lechner, Jr. issued the following statement:

“The State Department’s Inspector General found that only 53% of senior Department officials completed required annual ethics training in 2012. These findings suggest that Department officials during Secretary Clinton’s tenure did not take even their basic ethics responsibilities seriously. Americans have a right to know whether Secretary Clinton and her aides at the State Department flouted ethics requirements in order to grant special favors to Clinton Foundation supporters.”

Washington D.C. – Cause of Action Institute (CoA Institute) today called upon Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) J. Russell George to investigate whether IRS employees violated the law by disclosing more than a million pages of confidential information on tax-exempt groups to the FBI and DOJ’s Public Integrity Section.  CoA Institute also demanded DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz examine whether FBI and DOJ employees violated taxpayer confidentiality laws by inspecting that data.

CoA Institute President and CEO, and former federal judge, Alfred J. Lechner, Jr.: “The intentional disclosure of taxpayer information, especially information about groups that may have been targeted for their political viewpoints, not only violates the law but represents a breach of public trust.  Americans deserve to know how Washington handles their most private information.  Vigilant oversight is necessary to determine whether federal officials improperly accessed IRS records.  This incident may be the largest and most significant breach of taxpayer confidentiality laws by the federal government in U.S. history.”

The call for investigation comes more than three years after CoA Institute first submitted a request for records seeking information relating to the disclosures.  The IRS finally responded to the request on March 9, 2016, showing that, between 2009 and 2012, neither the FBI nor the DOJ submitted the statutorily-required requests for disclosure of sensitive tax return information.  CoA Institute investigators also obtained reports submitted by the U.S. Treasury, which oversees the IRS, to the Joint Committee on Taxation of Congress, which reported only around 2,000 routine tax disclosures from IRS to the DOJ, mainly through U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. However, the IRS actually disclosed more than 1.1 million pages of tax return information to the FBI in October 2010, and the DOJ Public Integrity Section appears to have inspected that information.

To read the full letter, click HERE.

Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code provides a strict rule of confidentiality for tax returns and return information.  Unless a statutory exception applies, government agencies and their employees may not disclose or inspect such information.  Violations can include fines, termination from employment, and imprisonment.

The information in today’s letter will be incorporated into a comprehensive investigative report to be released in the coming weeks by CoA Institute. The report will outline a pattern of abuse by the Obama administration relating to the safeguarding of confidential taxpayer information.

CoA Institute Executive Director Daniel Epstein: “Our staff’s detailed review of thousands of documents over more than fifty months has confirmed the lack of compliance by this administration with statutory requirements designed to safeguard Americans’ most private information.  As our forthcoming report will reveal, the administration’s revealed indifference to compliance has serious implications not only for the politicization of the bureaucracy but for the freedoms of any individual targeted by that bureaucracy’s menacing crosshairs.”

BACKGROUND

In October 2010, the IRS Exempt Organizations segment of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division disclosed more than 1.1 million pages of return information on 21 disks to the FBI and DOJ Public Integrity.  DOJ Public Integrity and the FBI sought this information to investigate potential prohibited political activity allegedly undertaken by these groups.  As part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the IRS and DOJ, CoA Institute obtained records demonstrating that neither the Public Integrity Section nor the FBI ever submitted a request for disclosure of tax return information to the IRS between 2009 and 2012, as required by federal statute.

CoA Institute alerted TIGTA about the possible violation of Section 6103 with respect to the October 2010 disclosure by letter dated July 23, 2015.  But that notice went unanswered.  Similar concerns raised in June 2014 by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform also were ignored.  Now, newly-disclosed IRS records confirm these earlier concerns that the IRS, DOJ, and FBI likely broke laws prohibiting the unauthorized disclosure and inspection of taxpayer information.

As described in today’s letter, both the FBI and DOJ Public Integrity failed to file requests for disclosure under the relevant provisions of Section 6103, and the IRS lacked authorization to disclose the 1.1 million pages of tax-exempt entity return information.  Given the pattern of abuse in the current Administration with respect to tax-exempt organizations, independent inquiry into what actually happened is not only appropriate, but necessary.

To access CoA Institute’s June 29, 2016 Letter to TIGTA and the DOJ IG, click here.
A full list of exhibits can be accessed here.
To access CoA Institute’s July 23, 2015 letter to TIGTA, click here.