An official with the Internal Revenue Service has admitted
that legal opponents of former President Bill Clinton were singled out for tax
audits, according to court documents made public this week.
"What do you expect when you sue the president?" senior IRS official
Paul Breslan told Judicial Watch, the Washington-based legal watchdog group
that had filed 50-plus legal actions against the Clinton administration and
subsequently found itself in the IRS's cross hairs.
Breslan's quote is cited in Judicial Watch's complaint against the tax agency,
based on a host of what look to be politically inspired audits that make the
worst abuses of the Nixon administration appear puny by comparison.
"There were literally six witnesses in the room when Breslan told us we
should have expected an audit," Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman revealed
to NewsMax.com. "Four of them were lawyers."
The legal group became the target of an IRS audit in 1998, just four days after
it filed an independent impeachment report against Clinton, based on years of
investigation into everything from Chinagate to the Paula Jones case.
But Judicial Watch wasn't alone. Witnesses bearing damaging testimony against
the president were a favorite target of the Clinton IRS. Those singled out for
audits include:
Clinton paramours Gennifer Flowers and Liz Ward Gracen, sexual assault accusers
Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick, and fired White House Travel Office Director
Billy Dale.
Leak
The Jones case, which would eventually lead to Clinton's impeachment, was of
particular interest to the IRS, which apparently leaked her confidential tax
returns to the late New York Daily News reporter Lars Erik Nelson.
In a September 1997 column Nelson revealed details from Jones' filing to bolster
claims that she was profiting from her sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton.
In a subsequent interview with NewsMax.com's Carl Limbacher (then with the Washington
Weekly), Nelson insisted somewhat implausibly that a "friend" of Jones
had come across her tax return during a visit to her home and decided to go
public with the secrets.
Quite an Enemies List
As the Judicial Watch complaint notes, the Clinton IRS also went after organizations
and even media companies it perceived as politically hostile, including:
The National Rifle Association, The Heritage Foundation, The National Review,
The American Spectator, Freedom Alliance, National Center for Public Policy
Research, American Policy Center, American Cause, Citizens Against Government
Waste, Citizens for Honest Government, Progress and Freedom Foundation, Concerned
Women for America and the San Diego Chapter of Christian Coalition.
Fox News Channel analyst Bill O'Reilly, a frequent critic of Bill and Hillary
Clinton, has also pointed out how the IRS has repeatedly audited him.
The political nature of the Judicial Watch's audit seems particularly blatant.
"The IRS asked for our political affiliations in the first notice of audit,"
Klayman told NewsMax.
When he questioned why auditors wanted to know about the group's political ties,
an IRS district director said the information had been deemed "relevant."
Worse still, each time Judicial Watch seemed to make legal headway against the
White House, the IRS ratcheted up the pressure.
"When we would accomplish something big, like the criminal finding by Judge
Royce Lamberth against Clinton in the Kathleen Willey Privacy Act case, our
lawyers would get a call saying, 'We just want you to know that Judicial Watch
is still on the IRS's radar screen,'" Klayman said.
"The same thing happened when we revealed the White House e-mail scandal,"
he added.
Shockingly, the IRS's intimidation tactics continue into the Bush administration,
which has failed to sack Clinton's IRS Commissioner Charles Rosotti.
After Judicial Watch won the release of thousands of pages of documents from
Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force last month, a badge-wearing IRS
agent showed up at the group's offices.
A personal meeting between Klayman and Bush Justice Department Criminal Division
chief Michael Chertoff, who led the Senate investigation into the Clintons'
Whitewater abuses, failed to yield any interest in pursuing IRS abuses, which
now threaten to tarnish the Bush administration.
When noted columnist Robert Novak inquired of the Justice Department about Judicial
Watch's IRS complaint, he was told by a department official, "I don't know
what we are going to do with this Klayman."
"When we were told that we were being audited because we sued Bill Clinton,
we had no choice but to stand up and fight in court," Klayman said. "By
leaving Charles Rossotti as IRS commissioner, Bush obviously is sending a signal
that political audits are fine with him."