Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 29, 1974 (1/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 29, 1974 (1/2)
[00.54.29] Mr. DANIELSON. Thank you for yielding. inasmuch as Mr.--my distinguished friend, Mr. Sandman and others request specificity on many of these items I feel it is appropriate that It be provided. Within this field of the use of the Internal Revenue Service, there are other items than those, mentioned. by Mr. Brooks. For example, along in 1971, and 1972, Mr. John Dean, who had authority to work as liaison between the White House and the Internal Revenue Service, obtained confidential Internal Revenue in information about a rather large number of people and under his direction efforts Were made to have the. Internal Revenue Service conduct audits On certain persons who were low on popularity within the White House. This is borne out on March 13 1973, for example, in a conversation within the Oval Office. The President asked Mr. Dean if he needed anything from the IRS and Dean responded that he didn't at that time. He said he now had sources in the IRS and could get whatever he needed without any further trouble. 'In the spring of 1972, the political campaign was warming up and they thought down --John Ehrlichman and others in the White House thought it would be good to get some information on Lawrence O'Brien. who was chairman of the Democratic National Committee They had found that in an investigation of Howard Hughes there was information indicating a financial connection with Mr. O'Brien. So Mr. Ehrlichman, in 1972, instructed Treasury Secretary Shultz to investigate and interview O'Brien about his tax returns because the President was interested. Thereafter, because of the inquiry. the IRS did interview Mr. O'Brien and they furnished Shultz with the results of the, interview. It didn't indicate anything particularly bad, so on August 29, Shultz, together with--Treasury Secretary Shultz together with Barth and Walters of the Internal Revenue venue Service. decided this, that we do nothing further about O'Brien. They notified Ehrlichman that they -were, dropping the matter, and of course, Mr. Erhlichman strenuously objected. But they wouldn't leave it alone at that point. A couple of days later, in early September, Mr. Ehrlichman got in touch with Herbert Kalmbach the President's loyal personal attorney and fundraiser, and told Kalmbach to go up to Las Vegas, Nev., and plant the story with Hank Greenspun of the Las Vegas Sun, I believe it is. Kalmbach fortunately refused to do so. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman has used his 2 1/2 minutes. Mr. DANIELSON. But this is a part of the pattern of misuse of the Internal Revenue Service. [00.57.12]