Stop Targeting Our Politics IRS Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me spend a few minutes, if I might, discussing the context of this legislation and a bit of what's in it.

The Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 enacted a list of 10 ``acts or omissions'' for which IRS employees face mandatory firing. This bill would amend the 10th act or omission to expand existing grounds for termination to include political motivation.

We all agree that IRS employees should not act with a political purpose. We all passionately believe that. But I want it to be clear that because of the environment in which this bill is being considered, there is absolutely no evidence that any IRS employees acted with political motivation in the matter under investigation. The inspector general reviewed and concluded that ``there is no indication that pulling these selected applications was politically motivated.''

The inspector general has come before Congress repeatedly and testified numerous times that he has found no evidence of political motivation. At the very first hearing on this matter that was held in mid-May, the inspector general was asked if he found any evidence of political motivation in the selection of the tax exemption applications. He answered, ``We did not, sir.''

When questioned by my colleague on the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. McDermott, whether he stands behind the assertion that ``no one acted out of malice or political motivation,'' the inspector general answered, ``We have no evidence at this time to contradict that assertion, sir.''

When my colleague on the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Becerra, asked him if it is correct that he did not find any evidence of political motivation here, the inspector general replied, ``That is correct, sir.''

In addition--and I want to emphasize this--staff from the Ways and Means Committee and Government Oversight Committees of this House have interviewed 17 IRS employees directly involved in this matter under oath, and none of these employees have suggested that the IRS actions were either politically motivated or the result of influence by any individual or organization outside of the IRS.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, the IG asked his investigative arm to review 5,500 emails. The head of the investigation concluded, ``The emails indicated the organizations needed to be pulled because the IRS employees were not sure how to process them, not because they wanted to stall or hinder the application. There was no indication that pulling these applications was politically motivated. The email traffic indicated there were unclear processing directions and the group wanted to make sure they had guidance on processing the applications so they pulled them.''

It's clear that there's no evidence of political motivation by the IRS under investigation now. Indeed, there has been too much political motivation in this entire effort by Republicans.

I want to say just a few words about what's in the bill, and the gentleman from Ohio and I have discussed this. The majority did not follow regular order. This bill did not come before the Ways and Means Committee. It essentially was not considered either at the subcommittee level, I believe, or the full committee level. So the Republican majority, in my judgment, did not carefully draft their bill to ensure that it was consistent with the current statute. If it had done so, there might have been improvement to this legislation and added the language ``willful failure'' as it appears under four of the other acts and omissions.

I think this bill will go to the Senate, as it should. I hope if it considers it, it will take up this issue of whether or not there should be a willful requirement in terms of its conduct because we're talking about the ability administratively to discharge an employee.

I think if there is political motivation on their part, action should be taken. I think it is also important that we understand that there had to be some willfulness in that action.

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Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself the balance of my time.

There's no question there should be no political motivation. So far there's been no evidence there was any.

This bill is being brought up in a context. It's outlined in the Republican playbook and, that is, go home and essentially go after the government. I think we should make sure in Washington that we act so the government acts on our behalf.

So everybody can reach their own judgment. I've told the gentleman from Ohio that the way you drafted it--and I'll just read this. The present language says ``threatening to audit a taxpayer for the purpose of extracting personal gain or benefit.'' That's the present language. Threatening is willful by definition. You can't threaten somebody unwillfully. Instead, we have new language, and I want to pick up the point of Mr. Crowley in terms of regular procedure. I mentioned it before.

It's important that we follow regular order in this institution. The bills before oversight were brought before the committee. We had no chance to act on this, and I would have suggested that the word ``willful'' be placed before it. However, everyone will vote as they wish on this. I think it will pass. It will go over to the Senate, and I will suggest if this passes and the Senate decides to act, that they take a clear look at whether there needs to be a requirement of an intentional misdeed as defined here because what we're talking about is the discharge of an employee; and whether it's IRS or some other government employee, whether in a local unit or any unit, it seems to me--or in the military, for example--I think we want to have some consideration of due process for them.

So that's the basis for the discussion here. This bill, I think, talks about political motivation. And I just wanted to add, as I end, the thought expressed before. There has been no evidence of political motivation by an IRS employee, and the effort to try to tie what happened there to the executive was an example of pure political motivation and terribly misguided and I think a harmful kind of connection when it did not exist. We should not do that in this country.

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