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Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers on Wednesday that investigating the source of the massive leak of taxpayer information behind an article published by investigative news agency ProPublica would be one of his top priorities.
“I promise, you’ll be at the top of my list,” Garland Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, emphasized during a budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The former federal judge said that for now he knows nothing more than what he learned from reading the sprawling article, which revealed that in some recent years, billionaires like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and businessmen Michael Bloomberg, and Carl Icahn. George Soros did not pay any federal income taxes.
“Senator, I take this as seriously as you. I remember well what a president is هو [Richard] “Nixon did in the Watergate period — creating enemy lists and punishing people by reviewing their tax returns,” Garland said. “This is a very serious matter. Obviously, people are entitled to great privacy with their tax returns.”
The ProPublica article, expected to be the first in a series, did not reveal how the journalists obtained the tax records, and the outlet did not respond to a request for comment. The article says the investigation is based on “a large set of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthy, spanning more than 15 years.”
The article adds that the tax strategies used by the wealthy individuals it cited seemed perfectly legal. She said the investigation “dispels the basic myth of the US tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and that the richest Americans pay more.”
The newspaper published a separate article defending its decision to publish the private records.
Tax information is generally confidential and those who disclose documents can be subject to criminal liability.
Garland said he believed IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig was handling the matter.
“He said their inspectors are working on it, and I’m sure that means it will be referred to the Department of Justice,” Garland said. “This was on my list of things to bring up after I finished preparing for this hearing.”
During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rettig said he shares “every American’s concerns about the sensitive, private, and confidential nature of information received by the IRS.”
Garland’s comments came as the Department of Justice, under President Joe Biden’s direction, has sought to move away from the aggressive tactics used against journalists and media organizations under former President Donald Trump and previous administrations.
On Saturday, the department said it would refrain from seizing records from reporters in the leak investigation “in a change of its old practice.” Last month, Biden called the practice “simply wrong,” although his position has yet to be formalized as policy.
Also Wednesday, Garland defended the Justice Department against criticism from the left that it is not moving fast enough to distance itself from the Trump administration.
On Monday, the department filed a controversial memo seeking to defeat a lawsuit against Trump by columnist E Jane Carroll, who claims Trump defamed her when he denied raping her. “How does this happen?” asked Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy Garland.
Are these criticisms valid? asked Leahy.
“I know about the criticism,” Garland replied. “The Department of Justice’s job in making legal decisions is not to support any administration, past or current. Our job is to represent the American people.”
Sometimes, Garland said, “We have to make a decision on the law that we would never have taken, with which we strongly disagree, in terms of policy.”
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