Just days after admitting the existence of documents that show the IRS shared confidential taxpayer information with the White House, the Treasury Department is now refusing to hand over the papers due to what it calls privacy and disclosure issues.
The announcement from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, or TIGTA, comes even after a federal judge ordered the government to turn over documents sought by the grassroots organization Cause of Action. The group’s top attorney says this latest lack of cooperation was expected.
“Sadly, I don’t think that we’re surprised that they did this,” said Cause of Action Chief Counsel Prashant Khetan. “This has been a two-year fight, where they have stonewalled and stalled throughout. Despite getting a very favorable court order that would have forced them to tell us whether there were investigations and produce the documents, they’ve decided to withhold every single page.”
The Treasury Department says it cannot hand over any documents because sensitive taxpayer information needs to be protected. Khetan flatly rejects that excuse.
“We don’t think there’s a valid argument there,” he said. “We agree that taxpayer information ought to remain confidential, but what they’re doing is using it as a sword and a shield. Here they’re attempting to block groups like us and taxpayers from knowing whose information has been targeted by the White House.”
Even without seeing a single document, Khetan said Cause of Action and other groups and individuals have already been vindicated their suspicion of the IRS and the Obama administration.
“We thought all along that there had been targeting going on of individuals,” he said. “What this lawsuit has accomplished is … we’ve gotten an admission that the IRS was sharing confidential taxpayer information with the administration, and they’re not supposed to do that.”
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Cause of Action Chief Counsel Prashant Khetant:
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Khetan said this takes the scandal to a new height from the harassment endured by conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
“We have, for the past few years, been focusing on whether or not the administration in the White House has been targeting groups or individuals,” he said. “We all know, through the Lois Lerner scandal, that there was targeting of groups. We had thought that they had been targeting individuals as well. We started with a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act request) both to the IRS and TIGTA, just to find out if there had been unauthorized disclosures of taxpayer information. Here we are nearly two years later, and we’ve learned that there were.”
Where does the legal fight go from here? Khetan said the court is likely to side with Cause of Action and force the documents to be handed over, but he said it make take a while and come with some conditions.
“We go back to the same judge. In fact, there should be a filing very soon that will set out a briefing schedule. Unfortunately, that will take us into 2015. Ultimately, I would say that it’s unlikely that we will get the documents in unredacted form, and that may actually be OK because citizens have the right to not have their information disclosed, even to groups like us,” said Khetan, who added that lawmakers need to jump on this as well.
“Congress really has the ability to get the documents, the same documents that we’re seeking, but to get them in unredacted form and to review them and maybe learn about who was being targeted and why,” he said.
Khetan said Congress has done a lot of good work so far in peeling back the layers of this scandal, but there’s more to do.
“We’ve been pleased with some of the steps that have been taken, not just with this but even the broader IRS scandal of the administration targeting certain groups. What we’d like to see is Congress be even more active, particularly in 2015,” Khetan said.
“The government needs to come clean about obtaining private American taxpayer information. Our lawsuit has at least revealed the IRS is doing unauthorized disclosures to the White House. So the White House was looking at certain taxpayer information.”
