Marriage Group Vows to Unmask IRS Tax-Document Leaker by Jongsstraw

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Marriage Group Vows to Unmask IRS Tax-Document Leaker

POSTED BY: JONGSSTRAW
UPDATED: Thursday, June 6, 2013 10:18
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Wednesday, June 5, 2013 6:25 AM

Tuesday, 04 Jun 2013 07:00 PM

By Bill Hoffmann

The chairman of the National Organization for Marriage says organization plans a vigorous fight against the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly leaking its confidential tax returns to a political opponent.

"We are getting ready to file a lawsuit . . . against the IRS for illegal disclosure," John Eastman revealed to "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"If there's a civil-liability provision that allows a taxpayer to bring such a suit, then we will do so . . . this is not just some low-level thing going on."

On Tuesday, Eastman testified before the House Ways and Means committee — which is probing the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.

He told lawmakers confidential information from the tax returns of his organization, which opposes gay marriage, was purposely leaked to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy and lobbying group.

That included lists of major donors and their home addresses — lists that was posted on the Human Rights Campaign's website. One confidentialdocument revealed that Mitt Romney's political committee had donated money.

But complaints to the IRS about the leak were allegedly ignored, according to Eastman.

"We encouraged the [Ways and Means] committee to consider a subpoena against the Human Rights Campaign itself, to say, 'OK . . . Who posted it on the website? Who from the IRS gave it to you?' Let's run that paper trail," Eastman told Steve Malzberg.

"When it was posted on the Human Rights Campaign website . . . we discovered the underlying original document had IRS internal markings on it that only get put on the documents after they're filed with the Internal Revenue Service."

Eastman believes the leak may have implications that go all the way to the White House.

"The president of the Human Rights Campaign at the time, Joe Solomonese, had just been named a national co-chair of the Obama re-election campaign. That's a pretty small inner circle . . ." he said.

Eastman said he also approached the Department of Justice about the leak because the illegal disclosure of private tax returns is a felony punishable by a $5,000 fine and up to five years in federal prison.

"The Department of Justice said [it was] a tax issue, we're not going to have anything to do this," he said.

The Treasury Department then launched an investigation of the National Organization for Marriage to determine whether the group had leaked the documents itself.

"Once we were able to prove to them that it didn't come from us, that was the last we heard of the investigation and that was last summer almost a year ago," he said.

"So beginning last August we filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests trying as is our right to ascertain the status of the investigation into who committed this felony against us by disclosing our tax returns."

So far, he added, his group has made no progress.

"It’s not only have we not gotten anywhere, the latest response came on May 3 and the inspector general's office of the Treasury Department advised us that it would be illegal for them to disclose the identity of the culprit," Eastman said.

"We want to know who did this and we want felony charges be brought, but we also want the individual IRS, individual agents responsible as far up the chain as that goes."
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/marriage-group-irs-documents/2013/06/0
4/id/508057

Just one of the many felonies allegedly committed by IRS officials. Time and jury decisions will tell.

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013 3:40 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Long ago, when I was working in the Atlanta IRS Service Center, my job was opening and sorting mail.

One of the ladies I worked with apparently opened Elvis Presley's tax return and showed it to some co-workers. She was gone the next day.

Guess disclosure isn't as big a deal as it used to be.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013 3:53 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Long ago, when I was working in the Atlanta IRS Service Center, my job was opening and sorting mail.

One of the ladies I worked with apparently opened Elvis Presley's tax return and showed it to some co-workers. She was gone the next day.

Guess disclosure isn't as big a deal as it used to be.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

Today, she'd be put in some worker's pool, idle, but still collecting full pay and benefits.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013 4:58 PM

JONGSSTRAW

A few were let go today. They all got personalized G5s.

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013 5:23 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Or the information may have been hacked.

I wonder which IRS agent would be made to walk the plank for that?

So, I was looking at the dates and times of your posts. No more posting really early in the AM before work, or during work hours, or after wifey goes to bed - just for a bit as soon as you get home, hunh?

A LOT of people keep you on a very short leash, don't they?

ENJOY YOUR NEXT FOUR YEARS!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - HERE'S LAUGHING AT YOU KID!

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013 10:35 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Yawn

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Thursday, June 6, 2013 10:18 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Or the information may have been hacked.

Nope again.

Quote:
IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups

The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year.

The IRS did not respond to requests Monday following up about that release, and whether it had determined how the applications were sent to ProPublica.

In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

http://www.propublica.org/article/irs-office-that-targeted-tea-party-a
lso-disclosed-confidential-docs

Quote:
So, I was looking at the dates and times of your posts. No more posting really early in the AM before work, or during work hours, or after wifey goes to bed - just for a bit as soon as you get home, hunh?

A LOT of people keep you on a very short leash, don't they?

What?

You do realize that the time shown on posts is Hawaiian Standard Time. Right? What shows as 10:18 am above is really 4:18 PM EDST.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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