Justice Department officials may have shared taxpayer info with White House

Attorneys from the Department of Justice's tax division may have improperly shared confidential taxpayer information with President Obama's White House staff for political reasons, a watchdog group said.

Cause of Action, a nonprofit government watchdog group, filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests Wednesday for records demonstrating whether Justice attorneys — some of whom worked directly on elements of the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal — leaked protected information to Obama administration officials while detailed to the Office of White House Counsel.

"Documents obtained by Cause of Action have revealed that since 2009, several DOJ Tax Division attorneys, many of whom have been involved in litigation where ... protected information was involved, have elected to serve the president as 'clearance counsel,' " Daniel Epstein, president of Cause of Action, wrote in a letter to Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general.

Epstein said his group has identified at least nine tax division attorneys who have also served in the White House between April 2009 and December 2014.

These attorneys helped vet potential candidates for appointments to high-level posts, Epstein said.

That practice "raises ethical and legal questions because of these attorneys' access to confidential taxpayer returns and return information," the letter continued.

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