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Paul L. Caron
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Thursday, September 3, 2015

The IRS Scandal, Day 847

IRS Logo 2Wall Street Journal, Miles From Nowhere: An Update on the IRS Scandal, by James Taranto:

Hillary Clinton is not the only official of the Obama administration to have engaged in email shenanigans. While we were away last week, as the Washington Times reported, a court filing from the Internal Revenue Service revealed that “Lois Lerner had yet another personal email account used to conduct some IRS business”: ...

“In addition to emails to or from an email account denominated ‘Lois G. Lerner‘ or ‘Lois Home,’ some emails responsive to Judicial Watch’s request may have been sent to or received from a personal email account denominated ‘Toby Miles,’ ” ... 

At first we wondered why Lerner would use a masculine pseudonym. Then we realized Toby is an epicene name and we’d been thinking of Toby Flenderson, the officious bureaucrat from NBC’s “The Office.” At any rate, Fox News appears to have come up with the explanation: “Two sources told Fox News that Toby Miles is the name of Lerner’s dog.” Confusingly, Lerner’s canine shares a surname with her husband, and Fox adds that “Lerner’s husband Michael Miles also reportedly may have been linked to the account.” ...

This week, as blogger William Jacobson reports, yet another fake Lerner email address came to light:

In . . . an August 31, 2015 Status Report, the IRS revealed that Lerner also used “a second personal email account” that, unlike the Toby Miles account, “does not appear to be associated with a denomination; only the email address itself appears.” The IRS refuses to disclose the email address for either the Toby Miles or the newly discovered account. ...

Why Lerner needed so many email addresses is something of a mystery, but she’s not alone among Obama administration officials. ...

The Washington Times reports on yet another thwarted IRS attempt to evade public scrutiny:

A federal judge Friday ordered the IRS to turn over the records of any requests from the White House seeking taxpayers’ private information from the tax agency, delivering a victory to a group that for two years has been trying to pry the data loose.

It’s not clear that there were any such requests—but Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the IRS cannot just refuse to say so by citing taxpayer confidentiality laws, known as section 6103 of the tax code.

Richard Pollock, then of the Washington Examiner, explained the background in a 2013 piece:

Treasury Department investigators completed but never released a 2011 law enforcement probe of White House economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, The Washington Examiner has learned.

The investigation by the Treasury Department Inspector-General for Tax Administration was sparked by Goolsbee’s remarks during an Aug. 27, 2010, White House news briefing in which he appeared to possess confidential tax information on Koch Industries, the private conglomerate controlled by the Koch brothers, Charles and David. ...

Six senators requested an investigation of Goolsbee’s remark under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, which protects taxpayers’ privacy. The IRS conducted the probe, then refused to reveal its findings, including to the senators and the Kochs—because, it said, they included taxpayer information that was confidential under Section 6103.

A group called Cause of Action filed the FOIA lawsuit seeking, among other things, “any communications by or from anyone in the Executive Office of the President constituting requests for taxpayer or ‘return information’ ” protected by Section 6103. Again, the IRS balked, saying such requests were private under Section 6103. That was the claim Judge Jackson rejected. ...

Whether the IRS is concealing misconduct is unknown; it’s possible, for instance, that the Goolsbee report found nothing amiss and its suppression was a product of mere bureaucratic monomania. Similarly, it’s possible Mrs. Clinton actually did turn over printouts of all her work-related emails to the State Department, but we may never know. In any case, it’s unreasonable for government officials to expect us to trust their assurances when they take such pains to prevent their verification.

On a happier note, it’s worth mentioning that the judges in both these cases were Democratic appointees. Emmet Sullivan was nominated by Bill Clinton in 1994 and Amy Jackson by Barack Obama in 2011. Independence and integrity are not dead, at least in the judicial branch.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/09/the-irs-scandal-day-847.html

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Comments

This makes it sound like Lerner had 3 private email accounts: lernerhome, Toby miles, and this one mentioned by Jacobson.

That the IRS and DOJ having been hiding this, from congress and the courts, shows an intentional effort to obstruct justice and multiple federal agencies don't work together like this without the approval of their boss, Barack Obama.

Posted by: wodun | Sep 3, 2015 10:26:04 AM

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a still unrevealed third and, maybe, fourth personal Lerner email account? The anti-free speech group at the IRS probably has a huge set of personal emails that they have been using.

Posted by: Woody | Sep 3, 2015 7:20:29 AM