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06/14/2015

Daily Caller: IRS Finds 6,400 New Lois Lerner Emails…Gives DUMBEST EXCUSE YET For Not Releasing Them

Read the full story: Daily Caller

The Internal Revenue Service found 6,400 more Lois Lerner emails — but they’re not handing them over in court.

The IRS’ latest excuses are nothing short of infuriating.  Department of Justice lawyers Geoffrey J. Klimas and Stephanie Sasarak, acting as counsel for the IRS, submitted a U.S. District Court filing June 12 in the case Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service. The court filing, provided to The Daily Caller, claims the IRS received new Lerner emails from the Treasury Department’s inspector general (TIGTA) but can’t fork over the emails to Judicial Watch, a nonprofit group suing to get the emails. Why? Because the IRS is busy making sure that none of the emails are duplicates  – you know, so as not to waste anyone’s time.  However, the inspector general already made sure that none of the emails were duplicates, so the IRS’ latest excuse falls flat. Here are takeaways from the court filing….

TIGTA gave the IRS 6,400 Lerner emails that they recovered from backup tapes:…. TIGTA already checked for duplicate emails:… But the IRS is going to go ahead and do some “deduplication” anyway, just to make sure TIGTA de-duplicated correctly:…

The deduplication might take a long time:…

The IRS isn’t going to start de-duplicating the emails it has until AFTER it reviews “Lerner communications which were not forensically recovered.” In other words, they’re going to review Lerner emails that they DON’T HAVE before they look at the ones that they DO have:…

The legal advocacy group Cause of Action is also encountering ridiculous excuses in its own lawsuit to get Lerner’s emails. Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew, Obama’s former White House chief of staff, seized all of the emails that went back and forth between the IRS and the White House and won’t hand them over, arguing that since confidential taxpayer information was illegally disclosed in the emails, then it would be illegal to make the emails public – since they have confidential taxpayer information in them. Get it?

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05/27/2015

Cause of Action Sues the Justice Department For Information On Tax Detail Program

Cause of Action, a nonprofit government accountability organization, recently discovered that the Department of Justice has been placing their Tax Division attorneys, some of whom have worked directly on the IRS targeting scandal, in the White House to provide legal advice to the President.

Having found no evidence of agency policies in place to safeguard against confidential tax information being shared with the wrong people, this practice of DOJ attorneys being detailed at the White House is alarmingly urgent.

In April, Cause of Action submitted several Freedom of Information Act requests and sent a letter to the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. These documents sought answers to whether appropriate legal and ethical safeguards are in place at both the Office of White House Counsel, as well as the DOJ, to ensure that detailed attorneys are appropriately screened to prevent confidential taxpayer returns and/or return information protected under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code from being unlawfully accessed or disclosed.

Having received no response from the government since our April requests, Cause of Action on Tuesday filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service.

As the complaint states, CoA is seeking the release of records relating to how the federal government protects Americans’ private tax information when government attorneys have the power to access and disclose that information. These records have been requested and improperly withheld by the Internal Revenue Service and United States Department of Justice.

“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. “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.”

The case number is 15-cv-00770.

[Read the Complaint below]

 

ECF No. 1 5.26.2015 Complaint

ECF No. 1-1 5.26.2015 Exhibits 1-15 to Complaint

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05/19/2015

National Review: Conservative Group Uncovers New Roots of the IRS Scandal

Read the full story: National Review

A group of lawyers who have been investigating the origins of the IRS scandal for the past year-and-a-half say they’ve uncovered the real roots of the IRS scandal — and they’ll surprise both liberals and conservatives alike.

 

The group, Cause of Action, which has subpoenaed thousands of pages of documents from the agency and is still embroiled in litigation with it, says the targeting of conservative groups resulted as much from IRS personnel merely following the instructions laid out in their employee handbook, the Internal Revenue Manual, as from any political bias at the top.

 

When the scandal broke nearly two years ago, the IRS and the Obama administration pointed the finger at a few bad apples in the agency’s Cincinnati office. The agency’s inspector general blamed the inappropriate targeting of tea-party groups on the “ineffective management” of top bureaucrats. Many reporters, particularly on the right, including here at National Review, concluded that top D.C. official Lois Lerner and her colleagues in the IRS’s Exempt Organizations office had orchestrated events from the outset.

 

Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, is a former attorney and investigator for the House Oversight Committee. He and his team, a group of 13 attorneys funded by the Koch brothers’ sprawling network of donors, say none of these stories fully explain what happened at the IRS between 2010 and 2014 and that, in fact, the targeting was baked in the cake. That is, the Internal Revenue Manual, the handbook by which IRS employees are required to abide, mandates the sort of scrutiny that delayed the processing of the applications of hundreds of conservative nonprofit organizations. Cause of Action has laid out its case in a confidential, 35-page memo obtained by National Review. They concluded that many of the IRS officials involved in the scandal were just following the rules.

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05/19/2015

Cause of Action Testifies Before Congress On Questionable White House Detail Program

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein testified before Congress today about CoA’s recent investigation into whether the White House may have illegally accessed confidential taxpayer information.

During a hearing held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, Epstein discussed Cause of Action’s finding that attorneys in the Justice Department’s Tax Division are being detailed to the White House to review the background files of potential presidential nominees.

As Epstein stated, the program raises ethical and legal questions because of these attorneys’ access to confidential taxpayer returns and return information.

“Cause of Action is concerned that this program may be a manner by which the President can be armed with information that may benefit him politically,” Epstein said.

Through a handful of Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests, Cause of Action found that the detailing of Tax Division attorneys to the White House has been unique to the current Administration. Since 2009, these attorneys, many involved in controversial matters involving confidential tax records, have served the President as “clearance counsel” – that is, vetting the President’s nominees by examining their tax records.

During its examination of these White House details, CoA found no evidence of policies, procedures, rules and/or guidelines that exist to ensure that detailed attorneys are appropriately screened to prevent confidential taxpayer returns and/or return information from being unlawfully accessed or disclosed. This means Americans’ most private information may be inappropriately disclosed to the White House.

Epstein noted two DOJ Tax Division attorneys in particular, Andrew Strelka and Norah Bringer. Prior to being assigned to White House detail, both served as trial attorneys involved in litigation concerning the IRS’s targeting of political groups.

It is known that Ms. Bringer accessed confidential taxpayer return information, and it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Strelka did the same.

“The American people deserve answers as to whether their most private information may have been shared with the White House for political gain,” Epstein told the committee.

In light of this concern, Cause of Action requested on April 15, 2015 that the DOJ Inspector General investigate the Tax Division’s practice of detailing attorneys to the White House. To date, the Inspector General has not responded to our request.

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05/8/2015

Weekly Rundown 5-8-2015

COA_blogImages_v03

 

CNN Money: Whistleblower accuses cybersecurity company of extorting clients – Cause of Action’s fight against the FTC continued on Tuesday… Read More

Law 360: Analyst Backs LabMD In FTC Row, Alleges Fraud At Tiversa — “LabMD Inc. on Tuesday scored a major hit in its data security fight with the Federal Trade Commission after a former analyst at the cybersecurity firm Tiversa Inc. testified that his company lied to the agency about the extent of LabMD’s data leaks after the medical testing firm turned down its services… According to LabMD’s attorney Reed Rubinstein… the testimony marked a “remarkable day” in the case and vindicated the company’s assertion that “the FTC action was based on manufactured evidence.” At the close of the hearing Tuesday, Rubenstein announced that LabMD will seek a criminal investigation against the Tiversa…” Read More

Epoch Times: EB-5 Visa Limits May Slow Flow of China’s Elite to US – Cause of Action will not allow public officials to take advantage of the EB-5 visa program… Read More

Fox News: Clinton agrees to testify this month before House committee on Benghazi, private emails — “Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has agreed to testify on Capitol Hill this month about two controversial issues when she was secretary of state — the fatal terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and using a private server and emails for official business, her attorney said Tuesday…” Read More

Washington Times: IRS still targeting tea party: Nine groups awaiting agency approval — “Nine tea party groups were still awaiting IRS approval for nonprofit status nearly two years after the political targeting program was exposed, the inspector general said in a report Thursday that, despite hiccups, claimed the tax agency has generally done a good job of cleaning up its act…” Read More

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04/15/2015

CoA Uncovers Questionable Practice between the DOJ and White House

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action, a nonprofit government accountability organization, has uncovered an ongoing practice at the Department of Justice whereby Tax Division attorneys, some of whom have worked directly on IRS targeting matters, are assigned to the White House to provide legal advice to the President.

“This ongoing practice raises ethical and legal questions because of these attorneys’ access to confidential taxpayer returns and return information,” said Cause of Action President Dan Epstein. “The public deserves to know whether ethical and legal safeguards have been in place to prevent taxpayer information from getting into the wrong hands — especially when those who access that information work in the White House.”

In order to determine whether such proper safeguards exist, we are today submitting a series of public records requests.

In particular, we’re seeking information about whether appropriate legal and ethical safeguards are in place at both the Office of White House Counsel, as well as the DOJ, to ensure that detailed attorneys are appropriately screened to prevent confidential taxpayer returns and/or return information protected under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code from being unlawfully accessed or disclosed.

Read the Freedom of Information Act requests we are filing, as well as the letter we are sending to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz below.

CoA DOJ OIG Letter by Cause of Action

FOIA’s:

2015-4-15 FOIA Request ODAG

CoA FOIA Request DOJ-JMD re OWHC Details

CoA FOIA Request DOJ-OPR re OWHC Details

CoA FOIA Request DOJ-PRAO re OWHC Details

CoA FOIA Request DOJ-Tax re OWHC Details

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04/15/2015

Washington Examiner: Justice Department officials may have shared taxpayer info with White House

Read the full story: Washington Examiner

Attorneys from the Department of Justice’s tax division may have improperly shared confidential taxpayer information with President Obama’s White House staff for political reasons, a watchdog group said.

 

Cause of Action, a nonprofit government watchdog group, filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests Wednesday for records demonstrating whether Justice attorneys — some of whom worked directly on elements of the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal — leaked protected information to Obama administration officials while detailed to the Office of White House Counsel.

 

“Documents obtained by Cause of Action have revealed that since 2009, several DOJ Tax Division attorneys, many of whom have been involved in litigation where … protected information was involved, have elected to serve the president as ‘clearance counsel,’ ” Daniel Epstein, president of Cause of Action, wrote in a letter to Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general.

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