[EL] IRS Mess

[Scarberry, Mark]

To put Cleta Mitchell's comment in context, I believe she had just said (as quoted in the WSJ story) that none of the investigators had contacted any of her clients, which led her to believe there was no real investigation.

I have no way of knowing whether the investigation is being done in a thorough way, but perhaps a failure to talk to the alleged victims (her clients) might lead a reasonable person to be skeptical.

Mark Scarberry
Pepperdine

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 13, 2014, at 8:25 PM, "Rick Hasen" <rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:



...

Quote of the Day: IRS Mess Edition<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=57911>
Posted on January 13, 2014 5:25 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=57911> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

“As far as I can tell, nobody has actually done an investigation. This has been a big, bureaucratic, former-Soviet-Union-type investigation, which means that there was no investigation….This is a deplorable abuse of the public trust, but I am not surprised.”

–Cleta Mitchell, quoted in WSJ’s Criminal Charges Not Expected in IRS Probe<http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303819704579318983271821584>, which begins:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t plan to file criminal charges over the Internal Revenue Service’s heightened scrutiny of conservative groups, according to law-enforcement officials, a move that likely will only intensify debate over the politically charged scandal.

The officials said investigators didn’t find the kind of political bias or “enemy hunting” that would amount to a violation of criminal law. Instead, what emerged during the probe was evidence of a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules about tax-exemption applications it didn’t understand, according to the law-enforcement officials.

...

--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

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