Austan Goolsbee may be one of those guys who think the law just doesn’t apply to his set.
Goolsbee has degrees from Yale and MIT and was an Alfred Sloan Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar, and, as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, was the youngest member of President Obama’s cabinet.
And in 2010, during a briefing to reporters, this super smart guy said that Koch Industries, owned by libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch — strong Obama opponents — paid no income taxes.
He may have used a confidential IRS document to do so. Unlike, say, using our byzantine tax code to avoid taxes, this would have been a violation of U.S. law.
Republican senators demanded that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration investigate and the office said it would.
Well, mum then became the word as to what the investigation found or if it actually occurred.
So, the watchdog group Cause of Action filed Freedom of Information Act requests as to what was going on with it.
The request was rejected by the Obama Administration on the very funny grounds that it was unlawful to release a citizen’s tax returns.
So, like a good watchdog group, Cause of Action sued. On Sept. 29, United States District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled in its favor and ordered the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to release the requested information.
The Obama Administration has said that Goolsbee was just repeated something he recalled reading.
If so, why the fight to keep things hidden?
Austan Goolsbee Vs The Law