Do U.S. presidents really make 'enemies lists'?

(Editor's note: This is the first of a four-part, first-person series on how abuses, scandals and crimes perpetrated in the Clinton administration without consequences led inevitably to greater abuses, scandals and crimes in the Obama administration.)

WASHINGTON – Four years ago, I wrote a column called "Obama's enemies list" predicting Barack Obama's Internal Revenue Service would subject his domestic political adversaries to politically motivated audits.

How did I know it was coming?

For one thing, my personal tax return in 2009, Obama's first year in office, was audited. Every single one of my documented deductions was disallowed. The IRS claimed my receipts for books I had purchased for my work as an author, publisher of books, producer of movies and news executive were not substantive enough. They were all Amazon-generated receipts that included dates, purchase price and the fact that they were books. The IRS insisted the receipts had to include the titles of the books purchased. I didn't think the IRS had any business knowing what I was reading. I still don't. Because I read a lot of books, it represented a lot of money – more than $8,000 in what the IRS claimed were overdue taxes, with penalties.

Before having my personal tax returns audited in 2009, I had never before faced one in 40 years of professional life. Since then, I have been audited every year Obama has been in office. That's either a striking coincidence that defies astronomical odds or a striking indictment of IRS policies under Obama. Think about it: No personal audits for four decades, then five out of five years since Obama took office. I fully expect to be audited again for 2014, 2015 and 2016 – Obama's last three years in office.

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But I also expected it because of what I witnessed in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was president. During his first two years in office, Democrats had control of the House and Senate. But in the 1994 midterm election, Republicans took over the House in a stunning repudiation of Clinton's attempt to nationalize health care. The White House was shocked and embarked on a campaign to identify its political enemies and neutralize them. I was high on the list of those targets and paid a big price for investigating corruption and uncovering scandals in the Clinton administration.

Long forgotten by the press, which writes first draft of history, is the fact that Clinton's "enemies," lots of them, were targeted for IRS audits: They included individuals, corporations and nonprofits.

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Though my personal taxes were not audited during Clinton's eight years in office, something more obvious took place. You might call it the "smoking gun" in the misuse of the IRS for political targeting by the Clinton administration. More on that later, but, for now, suffice it to say that Clinton skated. He was never held accountable – even for using the IRS to go after his critics and investigative reporters like me. When political history repeated itself in 2010, with Republicans once again taking over the House, I was convinced Obama would follow the Clinton script – and that's exactly what he did. Republicans didn't hold Clinton accountable. Nor have they held Obama accountable.

There was one other clue dropped in 2009 that tipped me to Obama's intentions to go after his enemies using the IRS.

I noticed reports in late 2009 that Obama administration officials and political appointees were already accessing confidential tax information on Obama's critics. In a late August conference call with reporters, Austan Goolsbee, chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, let it slip that he knew more than he should about the tax structure of Koch Industries, one of the primary funders of tea-party activity, including FreedomWorks. As well, Democratic Party lawmakers were already demanding the IRS crack down on those paying for ads attacking them in 2010. And everyone knew the Koch Brothers were enemy No. 1 of Democrats, so-called "progressives" and Obama.

This is the way it starts.

I know because I've been there – on the inside. I was targeted before. I knew what to expect.

It helps to understand history.

Maybe you don't think the Clinton administration is relevant. Maybe you think what happened then is ancient history. But remember who is still, despite some recent scandals that have thrown her into crisis-management mode, the leading candidate today for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2016.

As Edmund Burke said: "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

Next: A case study in paranoia and tyranny

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