Years after the FBI was forced to shut down multiple corruption probes of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charity, the IRS under President Donald Trump began a criminal tax investigation into the Clinton Foundation and its dealings with other players on the global charity stage, but then abruptly stopped working with whistleblowers in spring 2019, according to IRS memos and internal emails reviewed by Just the News.
“Can’t talk about the CF,” a memo states in recounting how IRS agents suddenly cut off contact with two whistleblowers they had been working with for weeks. One of the whistleblowers was a decorated former federal money laundering analyst who had testified before Congress about issues like terrorism financing.
The documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, add a new body of evidence about the federal government’s concerns about the former first family’s famous global charity as well as a persistent narrative of federal agents being thwarted in their pursuit of investigations tied to major Democratic Party figures.
John Moynihan, a retired Drug Enforcement Agency financial crimes analyst, and Larry Doyle, a corporate tax compliance expert, had spent years researching the Clinton Foundation, testifying to Congress about it and providing the IRS with evidence of alleged financial wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation.
The whistleblowers’ cases
Moynihan and Doyle are currently pursuing two separate whistleblower cases involving the Clinton Foundation in U.S. Tax Court, one of which is tentatively slated for trial on Dec. 1. That case includes references to documents from an IRS criminal investigations division investigation.
The memos show the duo submitted multiple IRS Form 211 “Applications for Award for Original Information” — which could have given them a financial reward if taxpayer funds were recovered as a result of what they had unearthed and shared with the IRS about the Clinton Foundation.
A Just the News review of related notes and internal IRS emails shows several meetings between the whistleblowers and the IRS between January and April 2019. The IRS appears to have moved from a serious initial interest in pursuing the Clinton Foundation’s potential wrongdoing to slamming on the brakes, allegedly claiming that such an inquiry couldn’t and wouldn’t be launched after all. All investigative activity had petered out by July 2019.
The whistleblowers filed applications for awards for original information with the IRS related to five of the non-profits listed in information they presented to IRS agents — called a “whiteboard chart” — in mid-February 2019. The whistleblowers also filed an application for an award for original information with the IRS related to the Clinton Foundation itself in early March 2019. The whistleblowers then filed new applications for awards for original information with the IRS related to five of the non-profits on the whiteboard chart in early June 2019.
The whistleblowers took notes of their half-dozen meetings with IRS criminal investigators with meeting dates ranging from late January to mid-April 2019. The notes focused in large part on the Clinton Foundation (“CF”) as well as on the Clinton Health Access Initiative (“CHAI”).
Several IRS investigations into Clinton Foundation all come to a screeching halt
Internal IRS emails show an IRS office in New Jersey initially taking serious interest in the whistleblower allegations about the Clinton Foundation. The meeting notes by Doyle and Moynihan repeatedly indicate that the IRS wanted to formalize a relationship with them as “Informants / Whistleblowers” or as “Cooperating Witnesses / Whistleblowers.” The meeting notes by the whistleblowers also quote one IRS investigator as having said that the whistleblower documents on the Clinton Foundation indicated that “the entire enterprise is a fraud.”
But the IRS agents soon purportedly told the whistleblowers that “we can’t talk about the CF” — a significant and swift reversal of what they claim they had been told.
The internal IRS emails also include evidence that the Clinton Foundation was likely being looked into by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, and federal investigators operating out of field offices in Dallas and Newark in 2019.
The Hill previously reported that Moynihan and Doyle had submitted 6,000 pages of evidence attached to a whistleblower submission filed with the IRS and FBI in 2017. The submissions flagged serious concerns about legal compliance, improper commingling of personal and charity business, and quid pro quo promises made to donors while Hillary Clinton was still Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.
The submission also cited an interview its investigators conducted with Clinton Foundation official Andrew Kessel that quoted the foundation’s longtime chief financial officer as saying he was unable to stop former President Bill Clinton from “commingling” personal business and charitable activities inside the foundation and that he “knows where all the bodies are buried.”
“There is probable cause that the Clinton Foundation has run afoul of IRS rules regarding tax-exempt charitable organizations and has acted inconsistently with its stated purpose,” the two men alleged in their 2017 submission. “The Foundation should be investigated for all of the above-mentioned improprieties. The tax rules, codes, statutes and the rule of law should and must be applied in this case.”
Congressional testimony: “Acting as an agent of foreign governments”
Moynihan and Doyle also testified before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee in December 2018, just a few months before meeting with members of the IRS’s criminal investigations team.
The Clinton Foundation “began acting as an agent of foreign governments early in its life and throughout its existence,” Moynihan testified in late 2018. “As such, the foundation should’ve registered under FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act). Ultimately, the foundation and its auditors conceded in formal submissions that it did operate as a [foreign] agent, therefore the foundation is not entitled to its 501c3 tax-exempt privileges.”
Moynihan had testified in front of Congress before, including as a criminal financial networks expert in 2003 during a House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing titled, “Progress Since 9/11: The Effectiveness of the U.S. Anti-Terrorist Financing Efforts.”
Brian Della Rocca, a lawyer for the whistleblowers, told Just the News that “unfortunately, we find ourselves in Tax Court fighting the Whistleblower Office again.”
“This time, we know for a fact that an investigation was started into the claims because it was done before the claims were filed. The Whistleblowers filed the claims at the behest of the IRS and, once received by the Whistleblower Office, the claims were shut down,” the lawyer for the whistleblowers said. “We are beyond frustrated.”
Previously hidden evidence of political obstruction by Obama’s DOJ
The newly-unearthed IRS meeting notes and emails have been revealed just a week after Just the News first reported FBI Director Kash Patel declassified a bombshell memo written in 2017. That memo chronicles the extensive political obstruction that career bureau agents in three cities faced from their own bosses and from the Obama Justice Department during the 2016 election as they probed whether Hillary Clinton engaged in a pay-to-play corruption scheme involving her family foundation.
The Clinton Foundation has long denied it did anything wrong and said any suggestion of wrongdoing was politically motivated. The foundation has acknowledged that past internal audits revealed compliance problems with some of its practices but insisted those have been fixed and that it always complied with the law, disputing the allegations by the whistleblowers.
The Clinton Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News. The IRS also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The IRS criminal investigation division put together a “memorandum of interview” on their discussion with Doyle, Moynihan, and a retired DEA agent in late January 2019 in Connecticut. Doyle, Moynihan, and the retired agent were each listed as a “witness.” The IRS stated that the IRS agents were present at the meeting with IRS supervisory special agent Carlo Nastasi and IRS special agent Paul Bataille.
The IRS memo says that the whistleblowers “wanted to meet with us regarding information related to tax evasion and related financial crimes” and details the information that Doyle and Moynihan provided.
Clinton Foundation’s billions spent in part on personal expenses and unauthorized projects
“Moynihan was working in Louisville when he was told to look at the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation and Clinton Health Access Initiative collected approximately $2.8 billion and have over $400 million in net assets. The Clinton Foundation’s net assets are $362 million and CHAI has $62 million,” the IRS memo recounted.
The IRS memo continued to explain that “Moynihan and Doyle analyzed the Form 990s, legally obtained emails involving the Clinton Foundation, and other documents from their FOIA requests. They found numerous problems with the Clinton Foundation. The foundation was not operating for its intended purpose of building the library. Personal expenses such as travel were paid out of the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation was operating as a foreign agent.”
The memo added: “The Clinton Foundation continued to collect money and operate after the library was turned over to the National Archives. The foundation was never issued a letter to change the purpose of the foundation, although the foundation began getting involved in health care issues. Bill Gates, a donor to the Clinton Foundation, was aware of this and was very troubled by it.”
The IRS memo also included numerous other details about the Clinton Foundation and allied non-profits and charities, as alleged by Doyle and Moynihan.
The meeting notes by Doyle and Moynihan confirmed that they met with Nastasi and Bataille on January 22, 2019. The whistleblowers said they brought their whiteboard chart with them to the confab. Bataille reportedly took interest in a white board chart put together by Doyle and Moynihan and asked, “Can I take a photo of that?”
The chart detailed dozens of alleged links — financial and otherwise — between the Clinton Foundation, numerous ideologically-allied non-profit organizations, the World Health Organization’s Global Fund, the Gates Foundation, USAID, developing countries, and U.S. taxpayers. Meeting notes from Doyle and Moynihan dubbed it the “White Board / Deep State / Swamp / Ecosystem Board.”
The meeting notes state that “we had a comprehensive discussion about the CF and our other investigative efforts.” The whistleblowers wrote that, when Nastasi “was asked toward the end of the meeting whether he thought we would win in our pursuits, he gave a very favorable impression indicating that he believed that we would be successful.” Nastasi and Bataille also reportedly “said that they would inquire internally as to if, where, and how they could pursue the cases we laid out” and “told us to give them a few weeks and that they would come back to us.”
February 2019: “The IRS took no action”
After a late January 2019 meeting with IRS agents, the IRS Whistleblower Office sent a “Final Determination” letter to Doyle and a letter to Moynihan in early February 2019, noting that the IRS Whistleblower Office had considered and denied their “Application for Award for Original Information” from August 2017.
The letter said that IRS Code Section 7623 “provides that an award may be paid only if the Secretary proceeds with an administrative or judicial action based on the information provided, and the action results in the collection of tax, penalties, interest, additions to tax, or additional amounts based on the information provided” and that “the Whistleblower Office has made a final determination to deny your claim for an award.”
The IRS letters to Doyle and Moynihan stated that “the claim has been recommended for denial because the IRS took no action based on the information that you provided” and noted that “common reasons for declining to act on information include statute of limitations issues, limited resources, or a conclusion that are no material issues.”
Meeting notes by Doyle and Moynihan state that they met with Nastasi, Bataille, and an IRS special agent in charge named “Laura” at the IRS offices in Springfield, New Jersey on February 15, 2019.
The notes said that “we review[ed] the entirety of our work” and their whistleblower forms on the five non-profit groups they had made allegations against. The notes state that Nastasi and Bataille “indicated they will review our materials and have another meeting in a few weeks” where Doyle and Moynihan would be formally signed up as “Informants/Whistleblowers.” Nastasi reportedly “informed us that having them shepherding/handling these cases will put us / our efforts much further along in the IRS pipeline for the processing and pursuing of WB submissions than not having somebody taking ‘ownership’ so to speak.” The notes said the discussion “went so far as to discuss specific venues where cases might be brought.”
IRS took whistleblowers’ allegations seriously in many bureaus
The meeting notes also said that Doyle and Moynihan showed Nastasi, Bataille, and Laura a document on one of the non-profits which “appears to be fully consistent with a similar document we sourced in re: to the Clinton Foundation’s tax-exempt status” and argued that “both documents are prima facie evidence of fraud.”
An internal IRS email from a few days later had the subject line “Foundation” and was sent by a “Special Agent Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Dallas Field Office / Tyler Post of Duty” with the name redacted.
The email stated, “In regards to our conversation yesterday, do you mind participating in a call with the AUSAs in Texas? I briefly spoke with them today, and they had a few questions that I was not able to answer.”
Another internal IRS email a few days later was sent by a redacted IRS supervisory special agent in the criminal investigation in the Springfield office in New Jersey, and showed the agent telling a redacted recipient that “the Whistleblowers are coming in tomorrow at 9:00AM for another meeting” and asking the redacted recipient to attend.
The meeting notes by Doyle and Moynihan stated that they met with Nastasi, Bataille, another IRS criminal investigations agent named “Sue,” and the New Jersey IRS office’s special agent in charge John Tafur on February 26, 2019.
The meeting allegedly involved the discussion of particulars about working “on contract” for the IRS versus working as a “whistleblower.” The two whistleblowers allegedly reviewed the form to work as a “cooperating witness / informant / whistleblower.” Doyle and Moynihan said they “shared the Final Determination Letter we recently received from IRS Whistleblower Office informing us of a denial of our WB submission.”
IRS Special Agent in Charge: “Well, this means the entire enterprise is a fraud”
Doyle and Moynihan “then inquired” of Tafur “whether we could have him/his agents pick up our WB file and proceed” and Tafur “responded immediately that they could and would welcome doing so.”
Sue reportedly “inquired who within the WB Office engaged us on our submission” and “she and the other IRS folks in the meeting were ‘shocked’ when we told them that nobody had ever engaged us.” Sue reportedly said, “That never happens.”
The notes by Moynihan and Doyle said that “we then shared … specific pages” within one of their exhibits — which they dubbed a “Smoking Gun?” — related to the “tax-exempt status of not only the CF but other 501c3 charities as well.” Tafur reportedly “leafed through the pages and reviewed them for five minutes before responding on the implication of those docs on the CF” and then stated, “Well, this means the entire enterprise is a fraud.”
The meeting reportedly ended “by continuing to discuss next steps” including “our bringing all our CF materials (thumb drive with 95 exhibits, Guide Books)” to a meeting scheduled for early March 2019, “signing the Cooperating Whistleblower form and filing the Form 211 on the CF so a Criminal Investigation can/will proceed with us as the Cooperating Witnesses/Whistleblowers”, and “drawing up a list of individuals whom the IRS would subpoena for interviews.”
The notes concluded by describing it as “a very interesting and productive meeting.”
The same day, an internal IRS email from a redacted sender with the subject line “Foundations Call” was sent to name-redacted recipients including at “USATXE” (the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas) and “USAARW” (the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas). The IRS email said that, on the “Foundations” call “we plan to discuss source, deconfliction, and possible coordination of investigations in the Dallas and Newark Field Offices.”
IRS agents continue to follow the whistleblower’s “significant amount of evidence”
Doyle and Moynihan filled out a Form 211 application for “Award for Original Information” related to the Clinton Foundation in early March 2019. The allegations were related to the “Clinton Foundation and Associated Companies.”
The alleged violation of tax law had to do with “Misuse of Public Funds, FCPA [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] in foreign locations, corruption of public officials.” The whistleblowers alleged that the Clinton Foundation had “$2.8 billion in revenue non-compliant with IRS authorization.” The submission to the IRS noted that the violation was first reported to Nastasi.
Meeting notes by Doyle and Moynihan said they met again with Nastasi and Bataille at the IRS office in New Jersey on March 7, 2019. They reportedly “officially signed up as Cooperating Informants/Witnesses and provided them with our Thumb Drive which now consists of 98 Exhibits totaling approximately 6300 pages.” The whistleblowers “reviewed the materials” with the IRS agents “and provided a Road Map/Plan for them to address all of the documents.”
The “Guide Books” the whistleblowers provided the IRS reportedly included a “Review of CF Exhibits”, a “Review of CF States”, a “Review of CF Names/Addresses”, a “Review of Potential Witnesses (55 in total under 10 subject headings)”, and “CF/India”, and “CHAI/India.”
The notes again concluded that it was “a VERY productive meeting.”
An internal IRS email shows that Nastasi emailed a number of IRS officials — including Bataille, Sue Diamond, Alethea Velez, and Patrick Boutte — in early March 2019. The email was also sent to an IRS-Criminal Investigation IT Specialist working at the Newark field office, with the subject line “Server.”
“[Redacted] and I are working on a case that involves a significant amount of evidence,” the IRS email stated. “We would like to request a separate server that we can upload all this evidence onto this way it’s all in one place and the three of us can view it. The three of us will need access to the server. If you need me to do anything on my end, please let me know.”
The IT specialist for the IRS said this request was completed a few days later.
One IRS agent also emailed others in mid-March 2019 to say that “I uploaded all the thumb drives” — presumably in reference to the thumb drives which Doyle and Moynihan said they had handed over to IRS investigators a few days prior.
The meeting notes by Doyle and Moynihan detailed a call with Nastasi and Bataille on March 29, 2019. The notes stated that “we informed them that we continue to work on the case and are following paths down on through the Clinton HIV/AIDS Treatment Consortium which includes” a number of universities and non-profits. The notes also state that Moynihan “informed them of our petition to the US Tax Court” and that Doyle “also informed them that we have a number of 211s to share with them relating to CF, CF partners, and CF private foundation donors.”
Somebody slammed on the brakes: “We can’t talk about the CF”
Meeting notes from Doyle and Moynihan show that at a late February 2019 meeting, IRS officials “confirmed that their office could pursue a case on the CF based on our submission”, and the notes stressed that “that we subsequently provided all our materials and formally registered as Cooperating Whistleblowers/Informants — and were photographed — for that purpose.” The notes state that Doyle and Moynihan had also provided a host of other details about the Clinton Foundation.
But it became apparent that all of a sudden, the IRS’s interest had been stifled. Bataille now allegedly repeated that “we can’t talk about the CF” at least four times. Nastasi allegedly said now that for the IRS to “open a criminal investigation of the CF that we would have to provide a cooperating fee witness” who was either is working or had worked inside the Clinton Foundation.”
The whistleblowers claim that this was “diametrically opposite of what” they were told earlier when the IRS “requested that we provide a listing of potential witnesses, contacts, and sources of information.” The whistleblowers say they had gone as far as to include the Clinton Foundation’s CFO as a possible witness after interviewing him themselves in late November 2016.
But now, Nastasi was saying that “without our walking in with a current cooperating witness then they could not and would not move forward with an investigation.” The meeting notes added that the whistleblowers “provided a list of 55 distinct individuals who could be Witnesses, Contacts, and Sources of Information.” But, they say, that “fell on deaf ears.”
Remarkably, the notes also contend that Nastasi “stated that the IRS really is not in a position to pursue charitable organizations that engage in purposes and activities beyond their approved authority” and that “the IRS is not capable or staffed to oversee this activity.”
The notes stated that the IRS “had not pursued any of the leads or materials that we had provided them” and “we learned that we really would have to do their job in pursuing this case and then give it to them to follow up.” The notes contended that “there is absolutely no doubt that somebody up the chain of command blocked this pursuit.”
Confused IRS offices, mixed messages and missing packages
Internal IRS emails from May and June 2019 seem to display confusion alongside a lack of coordination and seriousness within the IRS related to pursuing the whistleblowers’ claims.
A senior IRS tax analyst tied to the IRS whistleblower headquarters in Nebraska wrote an early May 2019 email to a name-redacted IRS special agent related to the claims by Doyle and Moynihan.
“This is a follow up to our conversation today regarding the WB claims 2019-006396 and all related claims. I have attached the list of WB claims which will be assigned to you. I have also attached the CI WB procedures for your convenience. Once you have completed the investigation by discontinuing or by fully adjudicated [sic], you need to complete a [Redacted] which I have also attached,” the IRS email stated. Should you have any questions or need further assistance with the claim, please do not hesitate to contact me. You will receive a package with similar documents in the mail.”
Investigation? What investigation?
Shari Salu, an attorney in the IRS office of chief counsel, sent a late May 2019 email to name-redacted recipients with the subject line of “Doyle / Moynihan.” The IRS attorney seemed confused that Doyle and Moynihan had numerous meetings with IRS criminal investigators earlier in the year.
“I am an attorney assigned to a whistleblower case out of the Washington, DC office. The case is Doyle/Moynihan. The petitioners have told me that they have met with CI [IRS criminal investigations] on multiple times regarding the Whistleblower case they submitted,” the IRS email stated.
Salu’s email expressed confusion about there being a case at all, saying “Based on the administrative file that I have in this case, CI closed their investigation in this case in approximately August of 2018, yet the pair told me that they met with CI as recently as last month, April 2019 […] Is this the case? If one of you could please provide some information on whether the information I received is correct, that would be very helpful. I am trying to clear up any conflicting information so that I know how to best proceed with this case.”
A clerk for an IRS Initial Claim Evaluation team — or ICE team — sent a mid-June 2019 email to a redacted recipient related to “the transmittal for the claim sent to you” in early May 2019, with the clerk asking the redacted IRS recipient to “please verify you have received the claim and return the signed 3210 to the ICE team.” An attachment provided by the IRS clerk showed that a package had been shipped to the IRS office in Springfield, New Jersey on May 10, 2019 and had been successfully delivered there on May 17, 2019.
A few days later, an IRS agent named “Carlo” — presumably Carlo Nastasi — replied to the IRS clerk that “I did not receive anything in the mail from your office” and that “all the information, including Form 211, was provided directly by the Whistleblowers.”
The same day, a response was sent back by an IRS employee named Diane, who wrote, “I have attached proof of delivery that the package was delivered and signed … at your office. Please let me know if you are able to locate the package. We will need the 3210 signed and returned.”
The next day, a name-redacted recipient — presumably still Nastasi — replied that “I did not receive these documents” but that “I will try to track down the package.” A response came back the same day: “Thank you Carlo for the help. We are required to follow up and file a lost package if not located.”
A week later, in late June 2019, a redacted sender — again presumably Nastasi — sent an email saying, “Hope all is well. Received the package today. Is there anything you need from me?” The same day, an IRS employee replied, “Wonderful news!! I will use this email as acknowledgment. Thank you for following up.”
The mixed signals seem to show that a plethora of experienced IRS agents did, in fact, take seriously the whistleblowers’ allegations, documents and information, yet as the matter moved closer to a decision to bring charges or seeking a consent judgment – not to mention an impending presidential election — someone at the IRS or DOJ suddenly spiked the rails on which the investigative train was running.
The IRS documents available at press time do not show that any further action was taken, but still unanswered is who, when and how an investigation of this size and scope was derailed. The continued litigation may shine light on those questions.
Reprinted with permission from Just The News by Jerry Dunleavy and John Solomon.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Read full article here