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Archer's IRS Investigation Going Nowhere, Critics Say
By Damon Chappie
When leading conservative nonprofit groups charged in 1997 that the Internal
Revenue Service was unfairly targeting them with audits, the leaders of the
Congressional tax-writing panels promised a thorough investigation to find
out if the IRS was being used to attack enemies of the Clinton administration.
For the first time since Watergate, the Joint Committee on Taxation was
directed to probe political abuses by the IRS and the decision was cheered by
conservative nonprofits and covered by newspapers across the country.
But more than two years after it was supposed to be completed, the
investigation remains unfinished and it may never be done, say people
familiar with the work.
And those same conservatives who cheered the beginning of the probe are
wondering why it is still lingering.
Joseph Farah, executive director of the Western Journalism Center -- the
group that financed newspaper investigations of White House counsel Vince
Foster's death -- blasted House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer (R-Texas)
and the JCT for failing to finish the investigation.
It was Farah's article on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal in
October 1996 that first alerted conservatives to the trend of IRS audits
against groups that opposed the Clinton administration.
"We've checked with Archer's office and basically we've gotten a lot of
double talk. ... There is no investigation, it's ongoing, you get every
answer you can imagine," said Farah. "The main point is that no report was
ever issued. From what I understand from other members of the House is that
Archer is just looking to get out" and he's going to "leave the job undone."
Farah said he was never asked to testify before the committee and he finally
got fed up and traveled to Washington at his own expense to find out what was
happening. "I was wholly unimpressed with the level of enthusiasm and
understanding of what is happening. ... It wasn't a real investigation.
That's the only explanation there could be for this."
Archer initiated the study after hearing reports from groups such as the
Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association, Americans for Tax
Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Western Journalism Center
that the IRS was auditing their books to see whether rules prohibiting
political activity by tax-exempt groups had been broken. The IRS also began
auditing a number of nonprofit groups associated with then-House Speaker Newt
Gingrich (R-Ga.) in the wake of the 1996-97 ethics case against him.
IRS officials vehemently denied abusing the audit process for political
reasons and said they welcomed the JCT study because they believed it would
clear them.
Archer, who chaired the joint committee, released a letter in March 1997
co-signed by Senate Finance Chairman William Roth (R-Del.) and the panel's
top Democrats, Rep. Charlie Rangel (N.Y.) and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
(N.Y.), authorizing the investigation. While saying they were troubled by the
charges of political abuse against tax-exempt groups, the signatories wrote
that the allegations "should be carefully reviewed as expeditiously as
possible."
"This is a full congressional investigation into all matters," Archer's
spokesman at the time told The Washington Times.
When a Sept. 15, 1997, deadline for releasing the report was missed, aides
said it would come out in the summer of 1998. The deadline was pushed back
again until December 1998, but that was missed, too. A key staff aide who was
given the task of conducting the investigation kept delaying her departure
date from the committee but finally left the staff in February of this year
with the report unfinished.
Trent Duffy, an Archer spokesman, acknowledged that "the report is late. The
last I heard they were still working on it."
He said he could not explain the delay.
Carolyn Ward, the JCT staff aide working on the issue, told a meeting of tax
lawyers last month that the investigation was going very slowly, according to
a participant at the meeting.
Ward told Roll Call this week that "I really haven't done anything on it."
She said that her predecessor, who left the staff earlier this year, had done
the bulk of the work.
Asked about the status of the report now, Ward said that "I'm actually not
permitted to answer questions on it as you might imagine." She referred calls
to JCT Staff Director Lindy Paull and Deputy Staff Director Mary Schmitt.
Phone messages left for both of them were not returned.
But even though the furor over the political activity of tax-exempt groups
has subsided since the 1996 elections, particularly since Gingrich left
office, the groups and the tax lawyers who advise them argued that the
investigation should be completed and released.
John VonKannon, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, said, "I don't
