DSC 0095 (35729938302) by Mark Warner is licensed under CC BY 2.0
June 8 marks 365 days since the revelation of the stolen IRS/ProPublica files
Yellen testifying Tuesday and Wednesday to Senate Finance and House Ways & Means
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday June 7 and before the House Ways & Means Committee on Wednesday June 8 — the one-year anniversary since the revelation of a “vast trove” of “IRS files” as described by the progressive outlet, Pro Publica.
The party responsible for the data theft has the keys to the kingdom: The thief appears to have top-to-bottom access to private taxpayer files of all Americans. ProPublica says it has 15 years worth of what it calls “secret IRS files” and confidently states that the files cover several thousand of the highest-earning Americans, ranked.
The cache is described as “a vast amount of information. It’s not just tax returns. It’s also things like records of stock trades, information that is sent to the IRS about financial activities.”
The Pro Publica revelation coincidentally took place the same day (June 8, 2021) congressional Democrats held a major hearing promoting tax increases.
On that day, in sworn testimony, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said, “I can confirm there is an investigation with respect to the allegations that the source of the information in that article came from the Internal Revenue Service.”
Since then, crickets from Rettig and Yellen.
Which entities are investigating? Have the investigative entities even asked ProPublica for a copy of the stolen information? What’s the reason for the delay?
Below is a video and written timeline of Yellen/Rettig statements to congress in the past year:
June 8, 2021: Charles Rettig, IRS Commissioner: “I can confirm that there is an investigation with respect to the allegations that the source of the information in that article came from the Internal Revenue Service.”
June 16, 2021: Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary: “And I really want to emphasize we do not know what happened”
June 23, 2021: Yellen: “We don’t yet know what occurred.”
Sept. 28, 2021: Yellen: “Just to be clear, we do not know that the ProPublica information came from the IRS.”
Nov. 30, 2021: Yellen: “We don’t know what the source of the leak of that information was.”
Apr. 7, 2022: Rettig: “I don’t believe it’s been indicated that it was actually stolen from the IRS.” “I get frustrated when investigations go on without public acknowledgement of what’s there. You know the timing isn’t helpful for maybe an agency to say what did or didn’t happen.”
April 2022: Rettig: “And I don’t believe there has been a public statement that it actually was a leak or a breach from the Internal Revenue Service where that data came from.”
May 10, 2022: Yellen: “I really am anxious to see some results here as well. I regret that I’m not able to do so.”