RICO: The real way to
hold the IRS accountable
23 July 2013One Comment
When the federal government acts like an organized criminal
enterprise, it’s time to treat them like one.
Appearing in the Daily Caller.
If you are looking for a political-judicial solution, such as
congress, impeachment, or a special prosecutor to hold accountable the unlawful
acts coming out of the Obama administration, beginning with the Internal
Revenue Service’s abuse and targeting of conservatives, Tea Party groups, and
Christians, you are looking in the wrong place. What the IRS did tilted
President Barack Obama’s re-election in his favor.
The IRS targeting reportedly began as early as 2010. Three years
later, no one has been held accountable and the facts continue to drip out in
slow motion.
Last week, for instance, as the Daily Caller reported, retiring IRS lawyer
Carter C. Hull testified before California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa’s House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee and implicated Obama appointee, IRS
Chief Counsel William J. Wilkin, in addition to the Washington-based head of
the IRS’s exempt organizations office, Lois Lerner, in the IRS targeting
scandal. Lerner already has pled the Fifth. Hull made it clear that the
targeting of conservatives and Tea Party groups started in Washington.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department declined to prosecute a government employee
who apparently knowingly improperly accessed former Senate candidate Christine
O’Donnell tax records. Does anyone really believe they will see justice from
the Obama administration in these cases?
The bottom line is this. You can’t get justice within the
political system in America anymore because the politicians own it. What
ultimately stopped the mafia? The Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations
Act (RICO). What can stop the Obama administration, starting with holding
corruption at the IRS accountable? RICO.
For years, as documented in The Whistleblower: How the Clinton White House Stayed in
Power to Reemerge in the Obama White House & World Stage, Washington’s
ruling elite have comprised a protected class, with rules that don’t apply to
everyday Americans. If you or I lied before Congress or to federal
investigators we would have been charged with perjury long ago.
In Washington, Attorney General Holder and National Security
Director James Clapper can lie to Congress and hold onto their powerful
positions without consequence.
People forget how the Office of Independent Counsel Special
Prosecutor Robert Ray used his prosecutorial discretion when he declined in the
1990’s to charge Hillary Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice.
Others might not know that additional potential crimes were not included in the
articles of impeachment during former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment
hearings which might have prevented the Clintons and the Clintonistas from
re-emerging in the Obama administration and on the world stage. People have
failed to recall how the Bush administration declined to prosecute quid-pro
Pardongate in which Eric Holder was knee deep in.
Aside from the occasional PR-savvy fall-guy resignations the
federal justice system has been dead for decades.
This is why RICO — the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt
Organizations Act is the solution for Americans to use to see some long overdue
justice in Washington. RICO provides a peaceful way to hold corruption
accountable.
Successful cases against organized crime have been built around
RICO, which was enacted in 1970 to target the mafia. What is needed is to use
RICO to specifically hold corrupt politicians and federal officials
accountable.
RICO has already held corrupt politicians like former mayor of
Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick, and his childhood friend Bobby Ferguson, accountable.
Under the RICO statute, they were convicted on March 11, 2013 of using
Kilpatrick’s office to run a criminal organization to extort bribes in exchange
for city contracts. It can be done.
According to 18
USC § 1961, crimes under RICO include everything from extortion,
obstruction of justice, obstruction of a criminal investigation, and witness
tampering, to kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing
in obscene matter and financial institution fraud. RICO also permits a private
individual harmed by the actions of an enterprise to file a civil suit, and if
successful, to collect treble damages (damages in triple the amount of
actual/compensatory damages).
In the U.S. the act of engaging in criminal activity as a
structured group is referred to as “racketeering.” In short, RICO requires at
least two acts of racketeering activity, establishing a pattern which occurred
within ten years after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.
It’s clear based on the number of conservatives and Tea Party groups that were
targeted by the IRS that a pattern exists. It’s also clear from the testimony
before Congress and in the Inspector General report that a number of officials
were involved who were following orders from above. The evidence of a pattern
and conspiracy already has been established. It’s time to use it.
Americans who have been targeted by the IRS or deprived of their
rights by other government agencies should consider filing civil RICO suit under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 –
Civil Remedy for Deprivation of Rights and RICO: Civil Remedies for
Conspiracies to Deprive Rights. Civil RICO does not rely on the politicized
criminal justice system to work. This is especially critical considering those
politics appear to have corrupted justice within AG Holder’s own department.
This American University Law Review report called, Using the Master’s Tools: Fighting Persistent Police
Misconduct with Civil RICO, by Steven P. Ragland, could serve as a
blueprint. This case shows how civil RICO was successfully used to root out
corrupt policemen in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and can be
applied to corrupt officials at the IRS and other agencies where corruption
exists. Substitute the bad cops with the individual corrupt government workers,
LAPD with the government agency in question and off you go.
Remember, the beauty of RICO is it can begin at the local
and state level, and be brought as a civil RICO action first that doesn’t
involve the federal government or any agency to participate. It is a private
matter. Civil RICO will not put anyone in jail but may lead to financial
damages. It “provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of
action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.” That
means as these civil RICO suits evolve and new potential criminal information
is brought to light through the discovery process, these suits can merge and
potentially become criminal RICO actions that can be brought before a grand
jury and spread to D.C. Victims of IRS targeting can and should start throwing
down the gauntlet now.
