IRS Employee Explains Why Conservative Groups Were Targeted
IRS jobs apparently trump free speech.
Cleta Mitchell is a conservative activist who has been very vocal about the IRS scandal which involved the targeting of conservative Tea Party groups in the run-up to the 2012 election.
She recently appeared on C-Span and an alleged IRS employee called into the show and explained to her that he would target these groups because they want to abolish the IRS.
Ali Meyer reported at the Washington Free Beacon:
IRS Employee Admits He Would Go After, Target, and Try to End Conservative Groups
A self-identified IRS employee admitted he would go after, target and try to end conservative groups who wanted to abolish the IRS, to Cleta Mitchell, an attorney representing those groups, on a Washington Journal segment on C-SPAN.
Mitchell, a political law attorney who has represented conservative groups during the IRS targeting scandal since 2010, was a guest on C-SPAN to discuss the possible impeachment of the IRS commissioner John Koskinen.
The first caller was a self-identified IRS employee who said he would go after the groups Mitchell represents if their goal was to abolish the IRS.
“I am a lowly clerk at the IRS, looking at your application for tax-free status,” said the caller, Bill, from Elizabeth, New Jersey. “I go to your web page to see the goals of your group and one of the goals of your group is to abolish the IRS.”
“You can bet every dollar you got I’m going to go after you and target you and try and end your group and that’s just the way it is,” the caller said.
“Well, it shouldn’t be that way, actually, and I don’t know anybody who said they would they would get rid of the IRS, but if they did that’s their right, that’s their First Amendment right to do that,” Ms. Mitchell responded. “And a government employee is not supposed to superimpose his beliefs or his judgment or his concern about his job over those of a citizen who has a first amendment right to express that opinion to abolish the IRS or to change the tax code.”
Here’s a video of the exchange:
The IRS scandal has taken a backseat in media coverage, largely due to the 2016 election, but new developments are still coming to light.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the IRS is now under fire for destroying records:
Instant Document Destruction at the IRS
Has the Internal Revenue Service been systematically evading federal record-keeping laws? On Monday the Cause of Action Institute sued the IRS and commissioner John Koskinen for refusing to preserve electronic employee communications that concern official business.
Cause of Action says that in 2010 the IRS struck a little-noticed agreement with the National Treasury Employees Union not to record employees’ instant messages. The watchdog group also says that in response to its Freedom of Information Act requests for text messages sent by senior IRS officials, the agency replied that due to “routine system housekeeping” and “spacing constraints,” IRS text messages are retained for only 14 days before they are deleted.
Both actions appear to violate the Federal Records Act that requires agencies to preserve all relevant documents. The agency says it retains emails, at least those that don’t disappear in mysterious computer crashes. But if employees can send text messages and not save them, they can avoid records retention. “No agreement with a union or any other party can supersede Americans’ right to know how the IRS makes decisions,” says Cause of Action. “In addition, the IRS is violating the law by regularly deleting all employee text messages as a matter of convenience.”
Whether the IRS is abolished or not, a complete change in leadership is obviously needed.
Featured image via YouTube.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Ho hum. The IRS has become a weaponized wing of the Democrat party. The Ruling Class is just fine with that. So, nothing will change.
It really isn’t any ruling class, because the elected officials now realize they have no power; that’s why they give in. The mass media, including and especially its entertainment and academic wings, control everything.
Thugovernment doesn’t get any more overt than that!
It’s time to end the criminal conspiracy that is the Agency State.
But it won’t happen under any candidate now standing for POTUS.
It is absolutely amazing what control of the press, Hollywood, and academia can do. This is beyond the most paranoid nightmare of any Conservative. No Democrat can have any scandal. The Congress will be made to look like crybabies. If it was a Republican, they would be heroes. This has really been true for a long time, but they are finally realizing just how much power they have. Republic? What’s that?
PS – This is really close to treason. I was a government constrator, and prefectly willing to vote for someone who might cost me my job as it was good for the country.
Just one more reason to vote for Trump.
Is Criminal Hillary going to do anything to change the criminal IRS?
No. And neither is criminal Der Donald. If anything, he’ll use it harder.
You have absolutely nothing to base that on. Including the word “criminal”.
You’re full of shit. And obdurately full of shit.
Trump has settled a lot of civil fraud cases involving his false and misleading business practices. Another that comes to mind just off the top of my head is how he settled the suit against him involving the Ocean Resorts scam in Baja California.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-settlement.html?_r=0
“…He and his co-defendants settled the case in November 2011, agreeing to refund 90 percent of $3.16 million in deposits, while admitting no wrongdoing.
The backdrop to that unusual denouement was a gathering legal storm that threatened to cast a harsh light on how he did business. Besides the fraud accusations, a separate lawsuit claimed that Trump SoHo was developed with the undisclosed involvement of convicted felons and financing from questionable sources in Russia and Kazakhstan.
And hovering over it all was a criminal investigation, previously unreported, by the Manhattan district attorney into whether the fraud alleged by the condo buyers broke any laws, according to documents and interviews with five people familiar with it. The buyers initially helped in the investigation, but as part of their lawsuit settlement, they had to notify prosecutors that they no longer wished to do so…”
As you can see, one of the reasons he settles these civil fraud cases is because they could easily become criminal fraud cases. If Trump didn’t have such deep pockets and couldn’t afford both a top-notch team of lawyers and to buy his victims off, his business practices would have landed him in prison long ago.
So, yes, we have something to go on when we call Trump a criminal. Sure, I’m certain HRC is a criminal, too. No doubt the worse criminal, but that’s arguing virtue between whores. But she hasn’t even been successfully sued for a potentially criminal act let alone indicted. Trump has been; he clearly settled this fraud suit to short-circuit the criminal investigation. So we not only something to go one when we call Trump a criminal, we have a lot more to go on than you Trumpsters when you call HRC a criminal.
Deal with it. You’re going to have to when the Democrats make hay as Trump takes the witness stand as the defendant in the Trump “Universtity” class action fraud case in NY. I suppose you Trumpsters may consider yourselves lucky that the judge in the California RICO/fraud case postponed defendant Donald Trump’s testimony until after the November election to avoid the appearance of being unduly political.
But there’s a lot of red meat in public court documents for the Democrats to use. Such as the judge denying Trump’s motion to dismiss the RICO allegations finding he had in fact committed the predicate acts of mail and wire fraud. Such as comparing the scam to Bernie Madoff’s. Such as the 9th Circuit ruling that had falsely and maliciously accused the lead plaintiff in one of the combined California class action fraud cases against him of defamation, thus violating California’s anti-SLAPP statute, leading to a judgement against Trump requiring him to pay nearly a million dollars to the plaintiff for her attorney fees and court costs.
Absent an indictment against HRC the Democrats are going to make Trump out to be a criminal. And with good basis; they have actual public records, court documents on their side. This is right out of the Obama play book. It’s how he destroyed his primary and general election opponents to become Senator Obama. And like Obama, HRC will have the media working for her.
And if you Trumpsters don’t like what I’m saying, don’t blame me. It’s you Trumpsters who thought the Donald was a good idea.
H’mmm. Job security at any cost? Protectionism at any cost? Avoid pain at any cost…
Where have I heard this before? Oh, yeah.
This shows me two things. One, that IRS employees are real stupid. and Two, all federal agencies are out of control. Can anything be done about them? I can imagine one agency, say the EPA, being raided and heads roll for one administration, but after the new president comes into power the corruption will begin anew. They are actually taking over many powers that used to be the Congress’ domain. Now with a simple air or water quality number that they create from whole cloth, they can make rules that are draconian and liberty stealing. Throw in the IRS, NSA and State and they have just about taken the Constitution and burned it.
We need to eliminate civil service and return to the spoils system.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have no reason to believe this person has anything to do with the IRS. And I can’t believe Mitchell doesn’t know of any groups who want to abolish the IRS. Her group may not want that, but plenty do, and for very good reason.
I was watching the news with my dad when the first news story came out alleging targeting of conservative groups.
His reaction? “Well, what’s wrong with that?”
He spent 25 years working for the IRS.
And this proves what? There is still nothing to indicate that the person being quoted has any connection to the IRS.
Human nature and common sense both dictate that what the caller said about the thought processes of IRS employees is correct, whether he is genuine IRS employee or not.
And that is the thought process that produces conspiracy theories. The caller was speculating, nothing more, and yet to you and your paranoid friends a plausible speculation instantly becomes an obvious truth, which nobody may question. Yes, it’s plausible that some IRS employees do think like that; but without any evidence that it is so it remains speculation and nothing more, and to treat it as proven fact is the sign of a paranoid personality.
This individual definitely worked for the IRS as he gave testimony to the committee and is cited in the Congressional report.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/22/bombshell-report-irs-targeted-icky-conservative-groups/
“Normal (c)(4) cases we must develop the concept of social welfare, such as the community newspapers, or the poor, that types,” Lerner underling Stephen Seok said in testimony published in the report. “These [Tea Party] organizations mostly concentrate on their activities on the limiting government, limiting government role, or reducing government size, or paying less tax. I think it[‘]s different from the other social welfare organizations which are (c)(4).”
Which is why of course the IRS targeted them. Smaller government types are the natural enemy of the entrenched bureaucracy.
Frankly, Milhouse, your refusal to acknowledge reality is odder than any so-called conspiracy theory. There is nothing conspiratorial about what is at first glance normal human behavior and at the second business-as-usual bureaucratic behavior.
Groups that want to shrink the role and size of government are a direct threat to the livelihood of the individual IRS official who is tasked to review and approve/deny their tax exempt organization application. What do you think that official is going to be inclined to do?
Second, the unfortunate nature of bureaucrats, especially heads of entire agencies or departments, is to grow their fiefdom into an empire. Bureaucrats increase their prestige and advance their careers by increasing the size, scope, and power of their bureaucracies.
Such are the perverse incentives of government bureaucracies. It doesn’t matter if you hurt or destroy people’s lives in the process. It’s good for your bureaucracy. That’s why if you’re a bureaucrat working for a federal or state agency involved in distributing benefits such as TANF, food stamps, or Medicaid, success is defined as having as many people as possible on he welfare rolls. And, like the IRS agent talking about “social welfare” basically being equivalent to larger government these bureaucrats will convince themselves they’re helping their “clients” because what’s good for their bureaucracy is automatically good for America. The opposite is of course the case.
Also Lois Lerner’s emails reveal her to be a Democratic party hack. She called Republicans/conservatives (her not seeing a difference) “crazies,” “assholes,” “terrorists,” etc. Why? Because they were opposed to Obama’s agenda. Of course, given Obamacare the IRS was the chief beneficiary of his agenda. Obamacare meant the IRS was going to grow massively as they were tasked with reviewing everyone’s health insurance to see if meat standards and fining people (they love that) who didn’t buy enough or any at all. I believe they got a whole new building out of it. Anyway, lots of new hires, which meant a lot of chances to move up the ladder, raises all round, and by the by, lots of new treasury union members. And more union dues means more political influence with the Democrats, and more influence with the Democrats means more rewards for the Treasury Dept. in general and the IRS in particular.
It’s not conspiratorial to say and it should surprise no one that the party of big government has the enthusiastic support of the physical embodiment of big government; the entrenched bureaucracy. Calling that a nutty conspiracy theory would be like saying it’s just crazy talk to say wolves “conspired” to kill a flock of sheep. This individual caller may or may not be an IRS employee. But this individual accurately articulated the bureaucratic mindset. We have plenty of real world, documented examples.
So we didn’t need this guy to know the IRS must be destroyed. For a start. Then there’s the EPA, the Dept. of Education, the…
What the hell are you talking about, Arminius? “Bill from New Jersey” gave testimony to the committee and is cited in the Congressional report?! From what part of your nether regions did you pull that?
You have no more idea than I do who this person is, but there is no reason to suppose he works for the IRS. He didn’t even claim to. His entire comment was a hypothetical.
It is conspiratorial to take for granted that something must have happened, without having any factual foundation for that supposition.
It may be true that ‘a lowly clerk at the IRS’ would say that he’s trying to save his job, but I seriously doubt that Lois Lerner, John Koskinen, and their like, are worried about their jobs.
For them, it’s an attack on conservatives, just like Obama wants.
Let’s not forget that the Establishment Republicans in Congress did little to nothing to actually investigate the IRS illegal actions other than a few hearings held just for show.
The vast majority of them hate the TEA Party as much as Democrats because the TPers are a thorn in their well-fed backside.
Congress can only investigate. Stupid.
How many times do you have to be told this? Learn some civics.
That is garbage. The investigation was as thorough as any congressional investigation can be.
Successful obstruction of justice and perjury do not equal innocence.
It kind of sounded more like a hypothetical to me, rather than an employee. No one would call and say “I’m a lowly clerk”… He would have said “I’m a Special Status Examine 3”, or something.
Exactly. The guy didn’t even claim to work for the IRS, not that there’d be any reason to believe him if he had. He just gave his uninformed opinion on how he imagines IRS workers would behave.
If his opinion was uninformed then by accident he hit the bullseye. That’s how bureaucrats do be behave. That is the bureaucratic mindset.
The question is not how IRS workers would behave, but how people in charge of those workers actually did behave.
I have no strong feelings about the caller, because I have no way to judge his credibility. However, the behavior of the people in charge was admittedly improper. I am concerned that we have yet to see either consequences or reform applied.
The only person in charge of the IRS that matters is the President. If the President is a Democrat, there need be no “smoking gun” in the form of an email or engraved invitation to hound his enemies. He can merely make apparently innocuous public comments or even half jokingly say something, as Barack Obama did during a commencement speech at ASU in May 2009:
“I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.”
It doesn’t take many hints for the the IRS to know they’re off the leash and free to act naturally.
Search on the term “Ideological Organizations Audit Project” for another example. This time, though, of JFK using the same technique.
And we all know Obama was a great admirer of JFK. Obama spoke of him often, usually when using JFK’s meeting with Khrushchev as an example of how to conduct diplomacy. Which explains all of Obama’s diplomatic debacles, not just getting pantsed by the Iranians. It would be hard for me to believe he didn’t know how JFK signaled his wishes publicly to the IRS.
Of course, the search will bring up many examples of the IRS abusing its authority for the political needs of a president. Not once will you see the IRS doing so for a Republican. They’ll accommodate the occasional request from a Republican Congressman or President but the won’t go all in for a Republican as they will for a Democrat. The IRS, indeed all federal civilian bureaucracies, regards that as sleeping with the enemy. That’s why Nixon could only be charged in the articles of impeachment with having “endeavoured” to use the IRS as a weapon against his enemies.
Nixon was stupid to even try.
You never will and if you do it is because TSHTF for real. The only way this red tape gets cut is a new Alexander cutting the gordian knot.
The greatest threat to any nation is itself.
“The caller was speculating, nothing more”
The ironic thing is this is pure speculation on your part, Milhouse.
No, it isn’t. The caller’s comment speaks for itself, and Ali Meyer of the Beacon mischaracterized it. The caller did not claim to work for the IRS, and there is no reason in the world to suppose that he does. He said what he thinks he would do if he were a lowly clerk at the IRS. He has no basis for assuming that the actual lowly clerks at the IRS did as he would.