More tax breaks for the wealthy
And this time, not from people with Rs after their names. Some background:
Perhaps you remember Henry Cisneros. He’s the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who pleaded guilty in 1999 to lying to FBI investigators during his pre-appointment background check about hush payments to a former mistress, on which it also happens he hadn’t paid the requisite taxes.
Well, the special counsel report investigating all this still hasn’t been made public, thanks largely to procedural roadblocks by Mr. Cisneros’s attorneys. And now, all of a sudden, a rash of news stories and editorials are urging Independent Counsel David Barrett to wrap up his investigation forthwith, without releasing his findings.
Then there’s the amendment that North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan and co-sponsors John Kerry and Richard Durbin are trying to attach to the latest supplemental war appropriations bill that would de-fund Mr. Barrett immediately. This would have the practical effect of making sure that Mr. Barrett’s report never sees the light of day. After 10 long years and $21 million, don’t they think taxpayers deserve to see what the special counsel has learned?
And what are they hiding:
So what don’t Democrats want everyone to know? We’re told that early on the Barrett probe moved away from Mr. Cisneros and his mistress and focused on an attempted cover-up by the Clinton Administration, especially involving the IRS.
Back in the early ’90s Mr. Cisneros was considered the rising savior of the Democratic Party in Texas. “So there were people who wanted to save his political future,” a source tells us. To that end, when the IRS began investigating him for tax fraud an extraordinary thing happened: The investigation was taken from the IRS district office that would always handle such an audit and moved to Washington, where it was killed.
“Never in the history of the IRS has a case been pulled out of the regional office and taken directly to Washington,” our source continues. This information was originally provided to Mr. Barrett, some years into his investigation, by a whistleblower in the IRS regional office with 30 years of experience.
Government corruption at its finest.
April 28th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
[…] a name=”5417″>
Senate Staffers Reading Blogs?
|By SayUncle|
I posted a link the WSJ piece on killing the investigation of Cisneros. Today, I recei […]
April 27th, 2005 at 4:06 am
If only we had an independent counsel to investigate no WMD in Iraq, No bid Halliburton contracts, Plame-gate, passing classified documents to Isreal, “video news releases” passed off as news, withheld EPA reports concerning air quality in New York City post September 11th, the Niger yellowcake forgeries, Abu Ghraib … forget all that stuff.
What REALLY is important is that Cisneros said he paid a mistress (public record) 2500 dollars a month when it was actually more and he pled GUILTY.
Yeah, lets keep spending 2 million a year trying to find some dirt on the Clintons.
Funny how the right wing had to make up murder lists while this Administation simple creates it own with real people dying.
Yes, I would say uncle to make it all stop but with the like of Ann Coulter on the cover of Time magazine, clearly we see America’s bests days have past us.
April 27th, 2005 at 7:58 am
So, what does that have to do with letting some guy off scott-free for tax evasion?
April 28th, 2005 at 3:00 am
WTF ? What does having an Independent Counsel investigating Cisneros have to do with tax evasion ? EVEN IF there was smoke where there was fire, why isn’t the IRS going after Cisneros ?
And with a 55 – 44 – majority in the Senate, how in the HELL can 2 of those 44 Democratic Senators squash a report, which the Wall Street Onlinejournal implies possible wrong doing ?
This crap went on non-stop from 1993-2001 {Funny, the years Clinton was serving as President} and I think is ridiculous that people are concerned about what Cisneros may or may not have paid taxes on payments to his mistress but those same people show no concern over the 21+ million spent on the investigation.
How about a compromise ? Why not have Barrett turn over his findings to the IRS and have THEM deal with it ?
I could careless about whether “a guy gets off scott-free for tax evasion” because it happens every freaking day but it seems that Democrats and regular smucks are the only ones that have to abide by the so called “rule of law”.
And if they are associated with the Clintons, you really have to go after them and the Wall Street Journal, along with the rest of the right leaning media has made a sport of that.
It is crystal clear to me. What does David Barrett have ? Seems like he should have SOMETHING solid after spending 21+ million dollars.
And I will even go out on a limb and say that if they accepted a GUILTY plea that he understated what he thought he was paying his mistress by mistake, how would THAT be a willfull act of tax evasion ?
I could be totally wrong and I don’t condone anything Cisneros did but what really chaps my hide is always these stupid headline like “An IRS cover-up ?”
Then an entire OPINION PIECE with no evidence of wrong doing.
April 28th, 2005 at 8:31 am
You’re missing the operative line, which is that (in an unprecedented move) the investigation was move and then quashed. No, I don’t like the fact they wasted $21M on a blue dress or any of that other witchhunt crap but when someone is granted political favors that place them above the law, that chaps my ass.