Alexis Levinson of The Daily Caller with an exclusive follow-up to this developing story:
In response to allegations that the Internal Revenue Service improperly leaked financial information about the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the IRS told The Daily Caller that it takes the laws requiring it to protect the confidentiality of documents submitted to it seriously.
... Reached by the TheDC, the IRS did not directly deny the allegations, but said that they take confidentiality requirements very seriously.
“Federal law, Internal Revenue Code 6103, protects the confidentiality of taxpayer return information,” IRS spokesman Dean Patterson emailed. “IRS takes this confidentiality of return information very seriously. Any allegations of improper disclosures of taxpayer information are investigated by the Treasury Inspector General.”
The IRS declined to address the issue of the “Official Use” seal, or to say whether the Department of the Treasury inspector general was indeed beginning an investigation.
“We are very confident that the IRS is taking this seriously, that the administration is taking this seriously,” NOM President Brian Brown told TheDC. “This is a felony to do this, and we trust that the admin will investigate.”
... “I have no doubt that we will have an investigation,” Brown told TheDC, and he said that he is equally certain that the investigation will end in “prosecution.”
“It is a felony,” he told TheDC, both to leak the information and for the Huffington Post and Human Rights Council (HRC) to post the information online. HRC has since removed the documents.
“We are working with our lawyers to make sure justice is done,” he said.
“The public deserves to know,” he concluded, that regardless of ones politics, “the IRS is not going to get your personal information and give it to your political opponents to punish you.”
23 Comments
Worst yet for Huffington and the HRC is the fact that they have been very vocal in their opposition to NOM; making it impossible for either to claim they were acting as an impartial "news' outlet absent of malice.
Malice will be easy to prove through the use of their own words on this subject - Malice carries the same weight as a hate crime.
Malice: the intention to commit an unlawful and unjustifiable act that will result in harm to another
"Malice: the intention to commit an unlawful and unjustifiable act that will result in harm to another". That describes NOM's raison d'etre.
@JR Huh?
Just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they hate you JR.
People are of course free to disagree. The issue here is that one side seeks to deny another side equal rights. The other side merely seeks equality and does not seek to take anything away from the one side.
Jr,
What does NOM do that is unlawful? You do know that disagreeing with the tyrannical left is, as of yet, still legal; don't you?
If JR and his ilk of their way we will lose the freedom to speak out against the tyrannical left - just as soon as they get that pesky freedom of religion out of the way.
and lots of us take civil rights even MORE seriously. THAT issue impacts lives and families and has deeper more profound reach.
"'But,' he said, 'they are not sitting idly by and have been approaching members of Congress about the issue.'"
Good move. I appreciate the IRS giving us lozenges by saying that they take confidentiality of tax returns "very seriously." Nevertheless, their feet should be held to the fire by Congress.
Kathy,
So what you are saying is that it is ok to violate the well established civil rights of others just as long as you are doing so in order to promote special rights for people based on what they do; absent any connection to the laws of nature or natures God?
You do realize changing the meaning of the word marriage will effect everybodies life don't you?
Unproven assersions of the moral superiority of yor side put aside for a moment JR; The fact of the matter is that NOM's actions are not unlawful. You then are engaged in slander, how does it feel?
The law says that the actions of the infomrant, Huff&puff post, and HRC are felonies, those are the facts.
With this Attorney General? You have to be very naive to believe anything will be done until this administration is out of office...
Encouraging people to agree with you at the expense of breaking laws is not something to be proud of Kathy.
Randy: NOM has broken campaign and election laws in several states and has lost in court, but still refuses to comply with court orders.
Could that be because the appeals process has not completed? Hm.
JR said, "one side seeks to deny another side equal rights. The other side merely seeks equality and does not seek to take anything away from the one side."
Sides? Harm? There's only one human race, consisting of two sexes. NOM seeks only to affirm that marriage is between the two opposite sexes. There are no "sides." Both sexes of the one human race are allowed to get married. Humans form different relationships that have different meanings and significance. One is not more important than another, or more "equal" than another. But, there is no "harm" in distinguishing them from each other. Marriage is unique in that it creates kinship between two unrelated, opposite-sexed humans, which also establishes natural legal ties between them and offspring they may produce. No other human union is exactly the same as marriage between a man and a woman.
GZeus,
That is a balled faced lie. A Court in one jurisdiction that I know of has turned in a finding that a state lawfully changed its reporting laws after the fact. The case is still under appeal and the court’s opinion does not carry the weight of law at this stage of the process.
NOM has not been found to be in violation of any reporting law to date and is well within its right to pursue the appellate process to its final conclusion. It is just another example of a state attempting to circumvent federal law.
Marriage does not create kinships; marriage is recognition of the kinship that was created by the laws of nature and natures God. Marriage corruption supporters are seeking to sever marriage from the laws of nature; probably because the laws of nature stand as a painful reminder of the error of their ways.
Put simply; the emperor is demanding that society ignores the fact that the emperor has no clothes.
Actually, TC, in one state, all appeals are over because the US Supreme Court refused to hear it, so yes, they are breaking a court order right now. Too bad they don't see it as wrong.
Back to the topic, hasn't the 'horse already left the gate"? who doesn't already have a copy of the filing by now?
It's important to "close the gate" and make sure no more "horses" are let loose. Prosecution to the fullest extent of the law should discourage gate-openers (and neigh-sayers).
OK, really bad pun. Couldn't resist.
Why the conspiracy theories? You're giving the Obama administration and the federal bureaucracy far too much credit here. If this came from the IRS--which is not at all yet certain--it was most likely leaked by some low-level gay (or sympathetic) IRS employee who's pissed off at NOM for their strident opposition to same-sex marriage. The IRS does not take kindly to such things. (And honestly, if similar information had dropped into your own lap from the other side, would you really not use it to your advantage?)
Rene,
Which state? which case?
Oh, right. John B has it exactly. Why bother with troubling things like investigations?
After all, that's what Woodstein and Bernward did......er........
Nerver mind.