June 4, 1998 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Western Journalism Center, in Sacramento, Cal., has filed a $20-million lawsuit against a former Internal Revenue Service official and a White House employee, charging that a 1996 audit the center underwent was “politically motivated.”
Joseph Farah, the center’s executive director, said he believes that his organization was unfairly audited because it supported a project that investigated a possible Clinton Administration cover-up in the death of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster.
“It was clear from the document requests that the I.R.S. was not really interested in our financial records, our bookkeeping practices, or our fund-raising techniques,” Mr. Farah said in a statement. “We were asked to explain why we chose to report about White House corruption . . . and what efforts were made to balance our stories.”
Mr. Farah said the center was found to be in compliance on all counts when the audit was completed in 1997.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in California last month, names two defendants: Margaret Milner Richardson, who was Commissioner of Internal Revenue when the center was notified of the audit; and Jane Sherburne, White House associate counsel.
Other organizations that have opposed Clinton Administration policies — including Citizens Against Government Waste and the Heritage Foundation — have also complained that they were unfairly subjected to I.R.S. audits. The Joint Committee on Taxation is looking into the complaints.
I.R.S. officials have repeatedly denied that any groups were singled out for audits because of their ideologies.
