IRS, The Emblem Of Big Dirty Government, Gets Dirtier

Editorial, Investor's Business Daily - Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Law: The IRS is stonewalling two congressional committees over new evidence it illegally targeted dissidents, this time citing employee confidentiality. If this means zero accountability for abuse of power, it's time for new laws.

Christine O'Donnell, a Tea Party candidate from a few years ago, was spot-on when she told the Washington Times on Sunday: "Unless this is all exposed, unless every level of inappropriateness and corruption is exposed, I certainly won't be the last person to be politically intimidated like this."

Back in 2010, as she campaigned for a Senate seat in Delaware, O'Donnell's private tax records were leaked by the IRS to her political opponents and phony claims about her tax liabilities were leaked to the press, all in a sleazy subterranean effort to keep her from winning that election.

And by remarkable coincidence, that was done by the same agency that has since admitted to targeting Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status, harassing them with insanely intrusive questions and delaying their applications for years at a time — all to repress political groups disliked by President Obama, who made it clear his administration considered them "terrorists."

And let's not forget that Joe the Plumber's tax records were leaked in 2008 and conservative Commentary magazine was targeted for a "corruption" probe in 2009. Now Chuck Heath Jr., brother of Tea Party manque Sarah Palin, has declared on his Facebook page that their father was "horribly harassed" six times beginning in 2008, after 50 years of faithfully paying his taxes without a single IRS inquiry.

During the tax-exempt debacle, IRS operatives such as Lois Lerner admitted wrongdoing but were allowed to resign with zero consequences and a full pension and invoke their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination before Congress, a privilege never extended to taxpayers. The travesty was compounded earlier this month by an FBI probe that insisted "nothing to see here, move along" and took no further action.

Now the dodge is getting creepier. The Washington Times is reporting that the IRS is stonewalling the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, each of which is seeking the truth about the illegal targeting.
The agency cites employee confidentiality rules, so too bad about all the citizens who've had their rights violated, because nothing trumps an IRS operative's right to operate in secret.

"Only the chairmen of the investigating committees — Rep. Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican who heads Ways and Means, and Sen. Max Baucus, the outgoing Montana Democrat who heads the Senate finance panel — can learn exactly what happened in a case such as Ms. O'Donnell's," the Times reported, noting that by law — that's right, by law — they cannot reveal the depth of the corruption they discover.

Read more... http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/012714-687790-irs-is-the-worsening-emblem-of-big-dirty-government.htm