Thursday, May 30th, 2013 @ 5:24PM

Between the Lines
by Gary D. Halbert

Members of Congress are trying to figure out how high up the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service goes. Specifically, they want to know if knowledge of the IRS targeting of conservative non-profit groups was known in the White House. So, on May 22, Congress questioned the former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman who visited the White House over 150 times in two years!

You may recall stories in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that the number of White House visits by the IRS chief was 118 in two years. We were curious where that number came from, so we did a little digging on our own. Fortunately, we didn’t have to dig too far. The White House’s own website (www.WhiteHouse.gov) reveals the official number of visits and by whom.

Now you would naturally assume that the most frequent visitors to the White House would be important members of the president’s Cabinet, the directors of the CIA and FBI and other key officials. But no, the most frequent visitor to the White House by far was the former head of the IRS, and as you can see below, he visited over 150 times. By comparison, in all of President George W. Bush’s years in office, the IRS Commissioner visited only once!

Why would you think that the head of the IRS would need to visit the White House almost twice as many times as Rebecca Blank, the Commerce Secretary or Thomas Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights or more than three times Hillary Clinton? You’ll no doubt notice that Attorney General Eric Holder is the fifth most frequent visitor to the White House. Hmm…

Interestingly,Penny Pritzker – the fourth most frequent visitor – is a Chicago billionaire hotel and real estate magnate and a major fundraiser for Obama. Until recently, Ms. Pritzker was the Chairman and CEO of PSP Capital Partners, a large private investment firm in Chicago.  On May 2, Obama nominated her to be the next Commerce Secretary, and it looks like she will be easily confirmed.

Going back to Doug Shulman and his 150+ trips to the White House, including at least four visits with President Obama personally, members of Congress wanted to know why he visited so often and what matters were discussed. Specifically, the House Oversight Committee wanted to know if Shulman had discussed the IRS policy of targeting conservative non-profit applicants.

Shulman repeatedly said that he didn’t recall discussing non-profit groups at the White House. He also irritated some on the Committee by saying that one reason he went to the White House was “the Easter Egg Roll, with my kids.” Several members considered that remark arrogant and disrespectful.

Some critics are speculating that Shulman visited the White House so often to obtain names of individuals and organizations on a supposed “Enemies List” for the IRS to target. They claim that he made these visits in person in lieu of phone calls which are recorded or e-mails that can be subpoenaed.  I have no idea if any of that is remotely true, and I doubt we’ll ever know.

Shulman claims that he never learned about the IRS targeting of conservative non-profit groups until the Inspector General’s report on the matter surfaced on May 14. It is widely believed that the targeting began at least back in 2010. If that is the case, Mr. Shulman was either unqualified for the job or asleep at the wheel… or just lying!

IRS Can See Everything You Do Online

I first referred you to this story in my May 21 E-Letter by way of a link in SPECIAL ARTICLES at the end. My guess is that a lot of my readers may have missed it. Everyone needs to know about this!

According to US News & World Report:

“The IRS spent about $1 billion in its recent data-mining modernization. As a result, the agency’s rolling out an effort to deploy sophisticated data-matching and pattern-recognition technology, and match up taxpayer returns with third-party information, according to U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.

The IRS is collecting massive amounts of data, tracking Internet users’ online movements, and using Social Security numbers, health records, credit card transactions and other information that private companies cannot obtain. Anything you do or say on the Internet can be used against you in IRS enforcement actions.” 

Again, you need to read this chilling article.

Posted by AIA Research & Editorial Staff
Categories: Between the Lines