(LibertySons.org) – The Durham Report has resulted in a cascade effect, causing lawmakers and some courts to extend or reopen investigations where the government may not have done due diligence. In that vein, the Clinton Foundation may face renewed questions in a tax case first brought by whistleblowers in 2017. A judge has breathed new life into the scandal. The IRS began asking for a summary dismissal of the case in 2020.
In his May 30 ruling, US Tax Court Judge David Gustafson cited three recent cases involving whistleblowers unsuccessfully seeking awards from the IRS using Form 211, an award claim form, for providing what they believed was actionable information leading to the unrelated recoveries of substantial shortfalls in tax revenues. He ordered the petitioners, whistleblowers Larry Doyle and John Moynihan, and the respondent, counsel for the IRS, to revise their arguments accordingly. He gave Doyle and Moynihan a June 30 deadline for revisions and the IRS until July 28 to respond.
The whistleblowers worked on a joint FBI/IRS task force investigating the Clinton Foundation in 2016. In 2017, they filed Form 211 with the IRS, claiming the IRS needed to investigate because they claimed to have credible information that the foundation accepted foreign funds transfers, invalidating its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity status. Doyle and Moynihan claim the foundation lied to IRS and other government investigators.
Responding to the whistleblowers’ claims involved two IRS divisions. Both the Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TEGE) Division and the Criminal Investigations (CI) Division declined to investigate or prosecute in 2018 after the whistleblowers’ material witness denied ever making a key alleged statement regarding foreign funds.
The case bounced back and forth between the divisions until October 2018, when the Whistleblowers Office (WBO) notified Moynihan and Doyle of the denial. They responded by November 2018, and after following an administrative appeals process, they resorted to legal redress in March 2019. The IRS has petitioned the court for summary dismissal of the case since they brought suit, but the court denied the motion in 2020, asking the CI division to pursue an investigation. In August 2022, the IRS again filed a motion to dismiss.
The litigants will return to the court in late June.
~Here’s to Our Liberty!
Copyright 2023, LibertySons.org
