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IRS has suffered mishaps and misadventures under almost every president, Republican and Democrat, going back at least to Herbert Hoover. I found authoritative government documents clearing showing numerous multiple abuses:

* Herbert Hoover, irritated by political criticism of his budget-cutting policies by an organization of weapons manufacturers, ordered a secret FBI investigation of the group that was partly based on supposedly confidential tax information.

* Franklin Delano Roosevelt regularly used the IRS as a political hit squad. He ordered the agency to mobilize its enforcement powers against former Treasury Secretary Mellon, Senator Huey Long, the singer Paul Robeson, Republican Representative and neighbor Hamilton Fish, Father Charles Coughlin and many others.

* During President Truman's watch, a massive and long-festering IRS corruption scandal erupted during which hundreds of agency officials and agents were implicated, including one secretary of treasury, one commissioner and one assistant attorney general. A good number were convicted and sent to prison for taking bribes or forced to resign from government service.

* With the full knowledge of President Kennedy and his brother, the IRS Commissioner of that administration established a program to go after "extremist organizations."

* President Nixon, among other abuses, established within the IRS the SSS --the Special Service Staff--to use tax records to track "dissident groups and individuals." One of the impeachment counts approved by the House Judiciary Committee involved the president's misuse of the IRS.

* During the Reagan years, the IRS forgot the lesson of the Truman era, and cut back on agency efforts to discover and punish corruption. The result was what appears to have been a mini-surge in willingness of IRS officials and agents to use their governmental powers for private gain in cities like Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles. http://famguardian.org/TaxFreedom/Evidence/Congressional/DavidBurnhamT
estimony.htm]

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During the 2004 presidential campaign, a minister unleashed a diatribe from the pulpit of All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., against George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. After the election, the IRS opened an investigation of the 501(c)(3) church. Although All Saints Church ultimately kept its tax-exempt status, leaders claimed the legal defense cost more than $200,000 and there were accusations that political influence triggered the investigation. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/05/irs_
targeting_the_tea_party_a_history_of_tax_agency_scandals.html]

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