Texans for Public Justice is a respected non-profit organization in Austin that focuses on exposing political corruption and corporate abuses in Texas. The group has been around for nearly a decade, during which time it’s taken on some of the state’s most notorious political figures, including a guy named Tom DeLay. (Information from the group culminated in DeLay’s in-state indictments.)
The group’s efforts caught the eye of some key DeLay allies — who tried to sic the IRS on them.
The Internal Revenue Service recently audited the books of a Texas nonprofit group that was critical of campaign spending by former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) after receiving a request for the audit from one of DeLay’s political allies in the House.
The lawmaker, House Ways and Means Committee member Sam Johnson (R-Tex.), was in turn responding to a complaint about the group, Texans for Public Justice, from Barnaby W. Zall, a Washington lawyer close to DeLay and his fundraising apparatus, according to IRS documents.
Johnson, a member of the subcommittee responsible for oversight of the tax agency, sparked the IRS’s interest by telling IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson in a letter dated Aug. 3, 2004, that he had “uncovered some disturbing information” and received complaints of possible tax violations.
Johnson said he was sure the IRS would follow up. “I ask you to report back your findings of each of these investigations directly to me,” he told Everson in the letter, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post.
Considering Johnson’s powerful role, the IRS did what it was told, and scrutinized the books for Texans for Public Justice and an affiliated foundation, looking for violations of tax law. Agents found no wrongdoing and gave the group a clean bill of health.
But how is it that Johnson came to use the IRS as a partisan tool in the first place?
Texans for Public Justice’s director found through a FOIA request that the IRS launched its investigation into the group based on literally no evidence at all. Johnson, a far-right Republican and close DeLay ally, ordered the IRS to comb through the organization’s records looking for misconduct, citing “disturbing information” that did not exist. What prompted Johnson to instruct the IRS?
It began when [Barnaby W. Zall, a Washington lawyer close to DeLay and his fundraising apparatus] wrote a July 19, 2004, letter to Johnson complaining about the Texas nonprofit group and noting that the lawmaker had “jurisdiction to review the Internal Revenue Service’s supervision of tax-exempt organizations,” according to a copy.
Zall’s biography on his law firm’s Web site notes that he was “of counsel” from 1990 to 1998 to the Williams & Jensen law firm, which has long represented DeLay’s leadership political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC). Barbara Bonfiglio, a principal at Williams & Jensen, was subpoenaed in January 2004 by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle as part of his inquiry into DeLay.
There are a lot of GOP scandals already on the docket, but this has the makings of a pretty big story. When powerful government officials use the IRS to harass and intimidate political opponents, that’s textbook abuse of power. Nixon did the same thing, and it helped spur the House to draw articles of impeachment against him.
This one is worth keeping an eye on. Some of the recent controversies can get a little complicated for the casual political observer — Abramoff, DeLay’s fundraising indictments, Mitchell Wade — but this one’s simple. DeLay’s allies sicced the IRS on a political opponent without cause. Stay tuned.