{"id":1451706,"date":"2022-04-23T20:14:36","date_gmt":"2022-04-24T00:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1451706"},"modified":"2022-04-23T20:14:48","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T00:14:48","slug":"jim-jordan-says-irs-cant-be-trusted-after-partisan-leak-investigation-stonewalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jim-jordan-says-irs-cant-be-trusted-after-partisan-leak-investigation-stonewalls\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Jordan Says IRS Can\u2019t Be Trusted After \u2018Partisan\u2019 Leak Investigation Stonewalls"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjim-jordan-says-irs-cant-be-trusted-after-partisan-leak-investigation-stonewalls%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1451706&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><ul>\n<li><strong>Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said Americans couldn\u2019t trust the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after it failed to provide answers about a massive leak of confidential tax documents.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The leaks of billionaires\u2019 tax records to ProPublica seemed partisan, according to Jordan, and closely aligned with Democrats\u2019 efforts to raise taxes on the wealthy.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>\u201cThis looks just like one more example of the government being weaponized against we the people, against the American citizens,\u201d Jordan told the Daily Caller News Foundation.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Americans can\u2019t trust the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after its investigation of tax document leaks has so far failed to turn up any answers ten months after it began.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan and Republican California Rep. Darrell Issa <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/517566086\/Letter-to-Inspector-General-for-Tax-Administration\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sent<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/07\/27\/jim-jordan-darrell-issa-internal-revenue-service-propublica\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letters<\/a> to the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) in July 2021 demanding information on the agency\u2019s investigation into how citizens\u2019 records were leaked after ProPublica <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/06\/08\/internal-revenue-service-wealthy-americans-taxation-jeff-bezos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published<\/a> private tax documents of some of the wealthiest Americans in June 2021. Jordan told the DCNF that after an initial reply, his office has received no further updates on the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if the IRS is on top of it. It sure doesn\u2019t seem like it from the response we got back from them,\u201d Jordan told the DCNF. \u201cAmericans need to know that your tax returns remain confidential. This is one of the hallmarks of our system and if that\u2019s not the case, if they\u2019re going to be targeted by the IRS like Lois Lerner did a few years ago and have their returns go public, that just can\u2019t happen.\u201d <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/30\/national-school-board-association-biden-admin-police-parents-terror-laws\/\">(RELATED: National School Board Association Calls On The Biden Admin To Police Parents Using Domestic Terror Laws)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Upon receiving Jordan and Issa\u2019s 2021 letter demanding answers, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig referred them to Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George, according to responses to the inquiries reviewed by the DCNF. George replied that the Republican lawmakers\u2019 request for TIGTA to brief Congress on the investigation could only be made by either the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Joint Committee on Taxation or the Senate Finance Committee \u2013 all of whom happen to be Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Rettig told the lawmakers that TIGTA had \u201ctaken the lead in the investigation\u201d and had \u201csole jurisdiction\u201d over the case if an IRS employee was found to have leaked the private tax records, according to the responses. That was the last update Jordan\u2019s office received about the matter, a spokesman for Jordan\u2019s office told the DCNF.<\/p>\n<p>Neither the IRS nor the Treasury Department responded to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7295742\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-7295742\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Charles P. Rettig, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, testifies during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the IRS budget request on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on June 8, 2021. (Photo by TOM WILLIAMS\/POOL\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Moreover, House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Kevin Brady and Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo sent a <a href=\"https:\/\/gop-waysandmeans.house.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/4-18-2022-Brady-Crapo-to-Yellen_FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letter<\/a> Monday to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding an update on the department\u2019s investigation into the leaks. Their request has so far gone unanswered, <a href=\"https:\/\/gop-waysandmeans.house.gov\/irs-chief-continued-silence-on-irs-leak-investigation-threatens-taxpayer-trust\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according<\/a> to a Friday press release.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan said the IRS <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/06\/08\/internal-revenue-service-wealthy-americans-taxation-jeff-bezos\/\">leaks<\/a>\u00a0appeared to be \u201cpartisan\u201d and coincided with Democrats\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/04\/22\/joe-biden-capital-gains-tax-hike\/\">calls<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/03\/31\/joe-biden-infrastructure-plan-trump-tax-corporate-cuts\/\">tax increases<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomehow taxpayer returns went public right when the Democrats were talking about raising taxes on the wealthy,\u201d Jordan told the DCNF.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the same IRS that 12 years ago was targeting conservatives,\u201d he added, referring to the IRS <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2016\/06\/06\/irs-names-hundreds-of-tea-party-groups-subjected-to-extra-scrutiny\/\">delaying<\/a> tax exemption applications for conservative nonprofits during the Obama administration.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan suggested the leaks may be part of a broader trend of the federal government being \u201cweaponized against \u2026 the American citizens\u201d to advance a political agenda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou saw it with the IRS 12 years ago, you saw it with the FBI five years ago when they orchestrated the spying on the Trump campaign, you\u2019ve seen it more recently with the Department of Justice effort after a letter comes in to the Biden administration from the school boards association,\u201d Jordan told the DCNF. \u201cLiterally five days later, the attorney general of the United States issues a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys doing exactly what the letter asked the Biden administration to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>ProPublica referred the DCNF to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/why-we-are-publishing-the-tax-secrets-of-the-001\">article<\/a> about their decision to publish the tax documents but did not comment further on the source of the leaks.<\/p>\n<p>Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact <a href=\"mailto:licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org\">licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said Americans couldn\u2019t trust the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after it failed to provide answers about a massive leak of confidential tax documents. The leaks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":1480247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1451706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1451706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1480247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1451706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1451706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1451706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}