White House Opposition Research Obtaining Private Information

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John McCormack at the Weekly Standard posted an article on the internet with the title, "Koch Industries Lawyer to White House:  How Did You Get Our Tax Information?"

David Koch is the founder of the group Americans for Prosperity, a free-market political group. 

According to the article:

"...a senior Obama administration official told reporters at an August 27 on-the-record background briefing on corporate taxes:

"So in this country we have partnerships, we have S corps, we have LLCs, we have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income taxSome of which are really giant firms, you know Koch Industries is a multibillion dollar businesses. So that creates a narrower base because we've literally got something like 50 percent of the business income in the U.S. is going to businesses that don't pay any corporate income tax. They point out [in the report] you could review the boundary between corporate and non-corporate taxation as a way to broaden the base."

The Weekly Standard sent an e-mail to White House press officials to confirm the quote; 72 hours later, the White House has not yet replied.  However, the Weekly Standard has confirmed the quote from an independent source who was at the briefing.

Mark Holden, senior vice president and general counsel of Koch Industries, is quoted in the article:

"I'm not accusing any one of any illegal conduct. But it's my understanding that under federal law, tax information, is confidential and it's not to be disclosed or obtained by individuals except under limited circumstances. ... I don't know what [the senior administration official] was referring to. I'm not sure what he's saying. I'm not sure what information he has. But if he got this information--confidential tax information--under the internal revenue code ... if he obtained it in a way that was inappropriate, that would be unlawful. But I don't know that that's the case."

At a time when Obamacare is adding sixteen thousand more agents to the IRS, all of us need to be concerned about the privacy of our tax information.  During the Presidential campaign we saw that Joe the Plumber's private files were accessed illegally when he spoke out against then-Senator Obama's plan to "spread the wealth around."  Admittedly that was done by a state worker and we don't know if it was done at the request of the campaign, but it was still illegal.

Free and fair elections are part of the foundation of democracy.  That includes freedom for everyone to speak their mind without fear of private personal or corporate records illegally accessed and exposed.

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This page contains a single entry by Granny G published on September 21, 2010 6:54 AM.

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