NY Attorney General sues Trump Treasury Department and IRS for failure to comply with requests for information
Yesterday, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office released a statement saying that her office filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s Treasury Department and its subsidiary bureau, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), for failing to respond as required by law to records requests. The requests concern the elimination of established donor disclosure requirements for non-501(c)(3) tax-exempt groups “for donors who give more than $5,000,” according to The Daily Beast.
The Attorney General’s lawsuit maintains that the IRS did not adequately respond within the mandated time limit. It also claims that the revised standards impede the AG’s ability to regulate those organizations.
The lawsuit, filed jointly with the State of New Jersey, asks the court to compel the Trump Treasury Department and the IRS to respond as required by law to requests for information regarding agency actions that directly impact the New York Attorney General’s ability to effectively regulate affected organizations operating in New York.
“My office depends on these critical donor disclosure forms to be able to adequately oversee non-profit organizations in New York,” according to James.
“Not only was this policy change made without notice, the Treasury and the IRS are now refusing to comply with the law to release information about the rationale for these changes. No one is above the law – not even the federal government – and we will use every tool to ensure they comply with these regulations to provide transparency and accountability.”
Basically, New York and New Jersey want to know why the Trump administration changed those IRS donor-reporting rules. MSN reported representatives for Donald Trump as well as Republicans in Congress as saying that the issue is basically a matter of the President’s privacy and that Trump is being targeted and harassed for his political beliefs. Democrats, however, say that they are being hampered in their efforts to investigate foreign entities trying to “influence U.S. politics through donations to ‘dark money’ groups.”
The Attorney General submitted several separate requests to the Treasury Department and the IRS on October 22, 2018, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The IRS has complied only minimally with requests for information, and not to the Attorney General’s satisfaction. To date, the IRS has provided only a partial production from one of seven categories of requested material; and the Treasury Department has failed to respond entirely.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 6, alleges that the Treasury Department and IRS have failed to meet their obligation under FOIA to provide required information within the statutorily prescribed time limit. Under FOIA, a federal agency must respond within 20 business days after receipt of a request with a determination that informs the requester of the agency’s intent to respond and the scope of the documents that the agency will produce.
As alleged in the complaint, the Treasury Department and IRS have constructively denied the Attorney General’s requests by failing to respond for more than six months and have improperly withheld material that the Attorney General is entitled to review.
You can view the Attorney General’s actual lawsuit here.
(Source: NY Attorney General’s Office)
~ Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today / Connect with Richard on Facebook and Twitter
