April 19, 2016 --

On March 22, a three- judge panel at the United States Court of Appeals for the Six Circuit, ordered the Internal Revenue Service (irs) to comply with the discovery orders of a district judge that were dated April 1 and June 16, 2015. The Sixth Circuit panel, in an opinion by Judge Kethledge, ordered the IRS to “comply “without redactions, and without further delay.” Three weeks after the Sixth Circuit ruling, LPR has found nothing online to indicate whether the IRS is now complying with discovery orders going back more than one year. The New York Times did not report that court’s ruling when it was first announced. On April 13, LPR googled the following search request: “New York Times articles in the March 22, 2016 Sixth Circuit ruling in the NorCal case.” This request bought up articles on the Six Circuit ruling from other sources, but nothing from The New York Times.

NorCal Tea Party Patriots and other groups brought suit against the IRS for violating information procedures in the handling of requests for tax exemptions. The plaintiffs claimed that the IRS treated their requests unfairly “because of their political beliefs.” The plaintiffs sought discovery to learn the names, among other things, of the IRS staffers who handled their requests. The district judge granted discovery and the IRS went to the Sixth Circuit to challenge the lower court’s ruling. The Sixth Circuit determined: “On the record before us here, the IRS’s response has been one of continuous resistance.”

The court ruled that the IRS was not entitled “to keep secret…every internal IRS document that reveals IRS mistreatment of a taxpayer or applicant organization—in this case or future ones.” Consider the forgoing. The IRS apparently tried to twist the applicable statute into an excuse to keep secret the facts of its mistreatment of groups based on their politics. Judge Kethledge pointed out that the statute in question “was enacted to protect taxpayers from the IRS, not the IRS from taxpayers.”

There was more sharp criticism of the IRS from the court. Judge Kethledge commented, “The conduct of the IRS’s attorneys in the district court falls outside” the “long and storied tradition [at the Department of Justice] of defending the nation’s interests and enforcing its laws….” The opinion added the expectation “that the IRS will do better going forward.” There is, as yet, no indication of compliance by the IRS with the Sixth Circuit discovery order. And at The New York Times – silence. Has anti-conservative outrage at The New York Times held its tongue?