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U.S. Tax Judge Revives Clinton Foundation Case In Wake of Durham Report

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


A whistleblower case involving a foundation launched by former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton has been revived by a U.S. tax judge in the wake of Special Counsel John Durham completing his ‘Russiagate’ probe.

The revival of the Clinton Foundation case comes after Durham, in his post-investigation report, noted that there were “significant failures to investigate allegations against” the charity, according to a new report.

The report stated that the “judge has once again breathed new life into a years-long whistleblower case alleging IRS improprieties involving the controversial Clinton Foundation.”

Previously, U.S. Tax Court Judge David Gustafson had refused an IRS request to dismiss the whistleblower case, which was initially filed in 2017. Notably, three years ago, he instructed the tax agency to disclose whether it had conducted a criminal investigation into the foundation. His request was prompted by a puzzling “gap” found in the IRS’s records, raising suspicions and prompting further inquiry, the outlet noted further.

Following the IRS’s filing of a new motion to dismiss, all parties involved in the case presented their arguments over the course of the past year. However, Gustafson decided to delay ruling on those motions and instead requested new arguments considering three recent court rulings that have set important precedents.

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The decision once again thwarts the IRS’s attempts to bring the case to a close, causing further frustration for the agency.

The three recent rulings in other tax cases “may affect the parties’ positions as to the pending motions,” Gustafson noted in his ruling. “We will order further filings so that the parties may address those recent opinions.”

The judge granted an extension to whistleblowers John Moynihan, a former federal agent, and Larry Doyle, a corporate tax compliance expert. They have until June 30 to provide updated arguments, while the IRS has until July 28 to respond.

That means it is highly likely that the case will continue for several more months.

Durham found the FBI used “uncorroborated intelligence” when it launched its investigation into Trump before the 2016 presidential election and that agents failed repeatedly to maintain “strict fidelity to the law” throughout the probe.

The Daily Caller noted crucial findings in the report about Hillary Clinton:

The report noted that the FBI received intelligence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign approved “a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” specifically one that involved “tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee” to distract the public from her email scandals. It notes that President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey were personally briefed on Clinton’s scheme, known as the “Clinton Plan” in the report, by CIA Director John Brennan, who recorded mentioning the plan in his handwritten notes.

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The “Clinton Plan” was obtained by the FBI while it was relying on the “Steele Dossier,” a discredited report of lurid allegations of Trump’s personal sexual activity, which the FBI knew was being funded and promoted by the Clinton campaign, according to the report. Durham quotes information from a meeting between the Dossier’s author, former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, and FBI agents, as well as texts between FBI officials, to demonstrate that the agents knew the evidence was connected to Clinton.

Durham’s report also found that the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice wasted little time to investigate Trump and that there was a “notable departure” from the way it resisted efforts to investigate claims against Clinton’s campaign.

Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville declared the alleged targeting of Trump gives many Americans reason to question future elections and government agencies and said people need to go to jail.

Last month, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan invited Durham to speak to his panel’s select subcommittee on government weaponization next week. The Ohio Republican is also demanding accountability after he and many Republicans argued the report proves Trump was politically targetted.

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