Paul L. Caron
Dean





Friday, April 1, 2016

The IRS Scandal, Day 1058

IRS Logo 2WisconsinWatchdog.com, John Doe Freedom Fighter Wins Big Victory Against the IRS:

The conservative activist who took on Wisconsin’s abusive John Doe investigation and won has been engaged in a similar epic struggle against the IRS.

Eric O’Keefe, director of Wisconsin Club for Growth, also serves as chairman of the board for Citizens for Self-Governance, the limited-government organization that is financially backing a class-action lawsuit by hundreds of tea party groups against the Internal Revenue Service.

The litigation alleges the Obama administration’s IRS targeted conservative groups for additional scrutiny, mainly under the regime of Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Unit.

Last week, more than 1,000 days after the lawsuit was filed, a three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, having lost patience with the government’s foot-dragging, ordered the IRS to turn over details on tax-exempt applicants. The IRS was given seven days to comply.

An attorney for the plaintiffs tells Wisconsin Watchdog that the IRS on Tuesday delivered a “large production” of documents and the law firm is now reviewing the materials. “We’re very pleased to have it. There is a lot of information in native file format,” said Eddie Greim, attorney for Graves Garrett LLC. “We hope to piece it all together and understand how the targeting scheme unfolded over time.” ...

[T]here were some eerie connections between the Wisconsin John Doe and the IRS initiative uncovered along the way.

“It was much like the John Doe spying operation,” O’Keefe said. “The department was overseen by Lois Lerner, a radical left-winger who met (GAB director) Kevin Kennedy when she worked at the FEC, the national speech regulator.”

As Wisconsin Watchdog’s investigation, Wisconsin’s Secret War, detailed, Lerner and Kennedy were close friends. Kennedy consulted with Lerner about the John Doe probe and asked how the IRS might get involved, according to emails obtained by Wisconsin Watchdog.

“This is a part of the national left attack using state power to stifle the political activities of patriotic Americans,” O’Keefe said of the IRS’ initiative. “It’s a horrendous abuse and they are using tactics with us similar to the ones that got them in trouble in the first place. They’re stonewalling, they’re not following the rules, and it leads us to believe that what they have is worse than what I suspect.”

A trial date is set for August 2017. “Believe it or not, that’s actually pretty fast for a federal court,” Greim said.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/04/the-irs-scandal-day-1058.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

Democrats have tens of thousands of nonprofit activist groups that engage in politics, even Obama's own OFA, but they scream bloody murder when non-Democrats try and engage in our democracy the same way Democrats do.

Now, with Democrats openly calling forms socialist revolution, is it any wonder that they use the same tactics to persecute dissidents?

Posted by: Wodun | Apr 1, 2016 1:01:43 PM

Thanks for the reminder, Paul. Unlike the IRS, some of us lowly tax practitioners lack your clairvoyance.

Posted by: Mike Petrik | Apr 1, 2016 12:45:43 PM

Just a reminder that those organizations should have been targeted, because they were planning to blatantly violate the regs under Section 591(c)(4).

Posted by: Paul Burns | Apr 1, 2016 10:20:06 AM