Why is the IRS harassing Paula Jones?

So the Internal Revenue Service is auditing Paula Jones, the President's antagonist in the one Clinton scandal for which he is being held responsible. Could this be a weird coincidence?

Rejecting the White House's popular "bureaucratic snafu" excuse, Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry said of the unusual audit: "We do dumb things from time to time, but we are not certifiably crazy." So the standard White House defense has transmogrified from "we're not evil, just incompetent, to "that is too evil even for this administration, so don't even think about it."

As Maureen Dowd of the New York Times said of the last almost-unbelievable Clinton scandal-the fire-sale on plots at Arlington National Cemetery-"What you need to know about Bill Clinton is that the charge was plausible:' (And this was even before Ariana Huffington got the goods on Larry Lawrence.)

So, too, the charge that Paula Jones's audit is politically motivated is plausible. The reasons it is plausible would fill an entire magazine, and, come to think of it, have filled the pages of HUMAN EvENTS on a weekly basis for five years running.

This is the White House, after all that has shown its deep respect for civil liberties and commitment to the rule of law by hauling secret Republican files from the FBI for inspection by a bar bouncer and other miscreants; by summarily firing employees in the White House travel office and then bringing criminal charges against the head of the office to cover the nepotism (criminal charges that were rejected by a jury in about 20 minutes); by lying to a federal judge about the make-up of Hillary's health care task force; by siccing Secret Service agents on Clinton's critics; by shaking down felons and Asians for campaign contributions in violation of federal law; and so on.

But apart from the steadily accumulating evidence that this administration considers itself above the law as a general matter, there has also been steadily accumulating evidence that the Clinton Administration may have taken IRS abuse to levels Nixon could only dream of.

First, consider this partial list of conservative groups that reportedly have been audited or investigated by the Clinton Administration IRS: National Reviews, American Spectator, the Christian Coalition, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Oliver North's Freedom Alliance, the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association, the Western Journalism Center, the National Center for Public Policy Research, Fortress America and Citizens Against Government Waste.

Though IRS audits are not a matter of public record, variations of this list have been published in numerous articles in a variety of newspapers for over a year now-along with the claim that no comparable liberal groups are being audited.

So far, no one has disputed that claim. No liberal outfit has stepped forward to say that it is being audited, too. The IRS has not denied the charge.

Odder than the audits of conservative organizations are the IRS investigations of individual citizens at odds with the Clinton Administration.

Tax lawyers say that individuals who make less than $50,000 a year are more likely to be struck by lightning than to be audited by the IRS. Paula Jones is a housewife, and her husband earns less than $37,000 a year. According to Investors Business Daily, IRS data indicate that Jones and her husband "were part of the least audited income group," with only a 0.95% chance of being randomly audited.

What must be the odds that so many other individuals who have been critical of the President would be investigated by the IRS as well?

Billy Dale, beleaguered head of the White House travel office, received an audit letter from the IRS about one month after the Clinton Administration fired him.

Patricia and Glen Mendoza, who were pounced upon by Secret Service agents and held for 12 hours after Mrs. Mendoza said "you suck" to the President, received a letter from the IRS one month later, threatening to confiscate their property to satisfy an alleged $200 debt to the IRS. The charge turned out to be a mistake, due-the IRS said-to a "computer error."

Kent Master-son Brown brought the lawsuit to compel Hillary's health-care task force to reveal the names of its members. He, too, soon found himself being audited by the IRS.

McCurry has been clever to stress the sheer craziness of having a politicized Internal Revenue Service audit Clinton's enemies, rather than trying to explain these many unusual coincidences.

But there is more than a series of extremely peculiar coincidences: There is at least one smoking gun. Congressional investigators looking into the White House travel office midnight massacre uncovered a memo about Billy Dale written by a White House lawyer. It said IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson was "on top of it."

Richardson is a political appointee-not one of those "career professionals" so often used as camouflage for the Clinton Administration's cover-ups. She was a friend of Hillary at Yale Law School, advised Clinton during his 1992 campaign, and served on his transition team. While she was commissioner of the IRS, Richardson attended the 1996 Democratic National Convention. Sure, the suspicion of a politicized IRS is outrageous, but what exactly was Richardson "on top of"?

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jan 23, 1998
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