Joseph Farah, editor and founder of WorldNetDaily, is filing a
Privacy Act demand of the Clinton White House for documents and files
maintained on him, his work and his organizations in connection with a
1996 Internal Revenue Service audit.
Documents already obtained from the White House through congressional
investigations and other means show the presidential counsel’s office
kept a dossier on Farah and his non-profit Western Journalism
Center.
Farah charges the White House is refusing to release research files and
other documents.
The Privacy Act demand is being filed on behalf of Farah, the Western
Journalism Center and WorldNetDaily by Judicial Watch, a public-interest government watchdog group
headed by Larry Klayman.
Judicial Watch has already filed two lawsuits on behalf of Farah in
what he charges was a “political audit” of his group in 1996. A Treasury
Department report obtained in 1999 through the Freedom of Information
Act concludes that the audit was initiated by the White House when a
letter was forwarded to the IRS.
Farah and the Western Journalism Center began investigating Clinton
administration corruption in 1994. By the end of that year,
congressional documents show, the White House Counsel’s Office was
already targeting them in task memos. A year later the White House and
the Democratic National Committee were distributing to select reporters
a 331-page document called the “Communication Stream of Conspiracy
Commerce,” charging Farah was helping to orchestrate a “vast, right-wing
media conspiracy” against the president.
In 1996, an IRS field agent launched an audit of the center,
announcing it was a “political case” and the decision about the group’s
tax-exempt status would be “made at the national level.” Farah blew the
whistle on the political nature of the case and a pattern of what
appeared to be other political audits against Clinton adversaries in the
Wall Street Journal in October 1996. A congressional investigation
ensued, but never concluded or resulted in a report.
Judicial Watch has filed a $10 million lawsuit against IRS and other
government officials on behalf of Farah and the center. That case is
pending, as is a Freedom of Information Act suit over delays in the
release of information by the tax agency.
The audit concluded in 1997 and the group’s tax-exempt status was
extended.
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