That was when the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United ruling. If you listen to a lot of people especially democrats though say that was a terrible day because it let all kinds of money and influence back into elections. I would argue itwas a scary date for a different reason. Not anything to do with dark money or more money, more money is good for free speech but for another reason and that was democrats had come to rely on a lot of these campaignfinance rules and freespeech rules to keep their opponents from speaking in elections and when all that went away, the Supreme Court opened up the gates again for people to speak. They said okay, if we cant outright bar them we will do the next best thing. We will threaten, we will harass, we will intimidate and tell them they will pay a political price if they continue to take part in elections. We had conversations about this online and these were the discussions had right after that we saw in congress to do that with legislation that would have had a retribution effect on companies if they had continued speaking. Host tell the story about the irs scandal because i learned more about it from reading your book than i ever knew before. Im hopeful this is the first telling of what really happened at the irs because the irs is a great example of what im talking about here. This book is about how governments, liberals and people on the left are using government to silence receipts. Its a very different one from the campus wars that we talk about and things like that and the irs is an excellent example. Its what we know is that we had that 2010 campaignfinance ruling. The left was very unhappy about this. We know that democrats also knew it was, a Midterm Election was coming up and the country was angry over a lot of its policies, it was worriedabout legal blowback and losing the house, maybe losing the senate. And so they are also worried because there were Tea Party Groups that have formed and therefore pouring into the electoral space and they are all concerned so what we see is in 2010 elected democrats sending letters to the irs you must do something about all these nonprofits and suggesting they are all shady and awful. You have a president on the stump saying wow, youve got all these groups, we dont even know who funds them, they could be funded by a foreign entity, it could be illegal, maybe somebody ought to do something about this was the general tone of what he was saying and we have an irs bureaucracy that had already been having this debate internally and they ran withit. They ran with for partisan and ideological reasons and they managed, we have all the emails that show all this. We had emails that show it was done out of washington. This was not, the white house this day says this was just a few line item agents in cincinnati who didnt understand the law. We know thats not true. We have a record of what happened there within 24 hours, the First Tea Party case getting segregated out, in cincinnati. It was in washington and everything was headed out of washington ever since that moment. We knowthat they , that was exposed within the irs, a year prior to the fact that they finally stopped, we know people did not Tell Congress the truth when they were asked about it. The story is there. Its just been waiting for somebody to tell it. Host you say here that most learner who was at the key of it, she metaphorically flipped the bird to america. Look, she ran this on Insider Office and look, ive never been in most learners head, i dont know what motivated her. We know that some of her emails that she was partisan to the left. We know she also had very strong anti, she hated money in elections, she didnt like the idea of nonprofits even though its the law of the land and her job was tofollow the law of the land. She personally did not like these rules allow these groups to operate. We know she was a very aware of the political environment in 2010 and Going Forward and everything that was happening outside with the president and his policies and things. So we know this all happened and yet when it was sort of exposed inside again, top brass at the irs didnt come to congress to tell them what was happening even though congress had been asking if this was happening. They didnt necessarily shut it down and when she finally came in to testify in front of congress revealed what had happened in that phony press conference or that event she was at where she had a question planted so that she could revealthis, she gets called in front of congress. She takes the fifth and proceeds to give a long defense of herself which you are not really supposed to do if you take the fifth, so she has never really had to answer any questions from anybody whose been doing any of the investigating. Host i couldnt help but wonder as i was reading what you wrote what would happen if john dingell were the chairman of the Oversight Committee instead of the republicans. On the republic is just not effective at oversight for why are they able to get through the stonewalling and the line . C4 they have in some ways done a remarkable job. We do know the basic facts of what happened here. And we know that in part because of guys like delisa who ran Oversight Committee, more important jim jordan, the ohio punishmentsat with me for a long time for this book. We did yeomans work and digging out a lot of stuff but one of the reasons white we dont know is not forget, everybodys computer crashed. Most learners email disappeared and when there was a backup copy, some of those disappear. And you know, the white house fought tooth and nail about having to turn over documents from there and that might shed light on this. Everyone planned up under some of the attorneyclient things and executive privilege things and theres all kinds of reasons why it been difficult. This is not a forthcoming administration. And i think thats been pretty clear in a lot of different ways that we do have the basic elements of the story. You keep reading your book and you see other agencies are westernized, so to speak against the lyrical adversaries of the president. Talk about the sec. So the sec federal Election Commission, it is a body that was created after watergate and its supposed to be bipartisan unlike a lot of agencies that have five members of the president s party has a majority. This one has three republicans, three democrats. And what is the post to do is he hears complaints, campaigns or private citizen and file them if they claim someone has broken campaignfinance law but we have and i was put in the book is we have a lot of examples of the staff inside the federal Election Commission and again, i think this is an ideology thing. They dont like money in politics either, sort of naturally this inclined against it, its not their job to have a statement on that for two read the system in any way against money. We have laws that we have but you can tell they just generally dont like it and i think its true that because republicans often embraces you see a little bit of a bump there, they dont like the republican brooks that have complaints filed against them and thats what we have and theres stories of it in here about one republican commissioner was there for a while, hes gone now, don mechanic managed to root out some of the examples of how the sec staff was attempting to bring charges against groups but only doing so in a way in which they had to jump the rules and sort of change things around so these groups would be held to a different standard and the exposed some of that. And its a really interesting story. In fact, it said that lots of the lawyers who, you write to end up at the sec are typical ruling class elites who view conservatives as backwoods simpletons who arent smart enough to officiate all the leftist progress can offer and you have again saying i love to say that was going on is simple partisanship but its deeper than that. Its a way of thinking and in some manners that for more troubling and worrisome use of government power. Guest those are all dons words there and i think he is onto something important because you see it in the irs and you see these days and i think you see itin some of the other intimidation things that are in the book. This was swanson prostitution that went on all you have are these bureaucracies and they are preprogrammed to dislike money in politics, to dislike republicans they come to governments all coming out of sometimes the same universities with the same viewpoints on things so when they hear the dog whistle, when they hear the president of the United States say these nonprofits are scary things or when they are up in wisconsin and they see a prosecutor working on a case against the Campaign Finance violation supposedly by conservatives, they are prime to act. They already inclined to do it and thatshow you enough some of these abuses. Theyre not always as out and out intentional what you end up in the same place anyway. Host kimberly, tell the story of eric ot and the john doe investigation in wisconsin. Guest this is in the book. I think the irs scandal is really disturbing because of how broad it was, how wide and how Many Americans affected, tens of thousands of americans had voices somewhat silence during the 2010 and 2012 elections. Wisconsin is scary for the power and the abuse that was brought against these groups so what you have is, you have about 30 conservative grassroots organizations who were very supportive of Governor Scott walkers reforms during that whole recall fight that happened in wisconsin. You then have a very liberal District Attorney in milwaukee who launches a secret probe into these groups and hes able to do this because wisconsin has an odd law that it did call the john doe statute which allows you to conduct a secret investigation so this is a secret subpoena to all these organizations and individuals. He gets their internet email, get their phone records, these going through their financial records, going through everything. These tracking this connection may have with each other. He does predawn raids, they show up in the dark at the house of some of the parties and this is happening in wisconsin. One of the worst stories in the book is, they show up at the house of one of the targets, he and his wife were on a charitable fundraising trip and their teenage son is home alone. They come in, they put him in a room, they will not let him call an attorney. They will not let him call his grandparents who lived down the road. Theyransacked the house, kick things off until this kid as they leave, you are under a gag order. If you tell anyone what happened to you this morning , you cant even tell the school what happened. Its why you are late right now. You tell anyone, you can go today also these are some of the tactics that were used and by the way, i think the ending of this story is very important the cause eric ot was one of those who was targeted and he decided to defy the gag order and came to the wall street journal where i work and we blew the lid off this abuse that was happening in wisconsin and it was playing out abuse and that a lawsuit was filed and it went all the way up to the Supreme Court in wisconsin and wisconsins Supreme Court shut down the strobe and you know, at the end there was this great line and its in the book. Im going to paraphrase here but the Court Majority basically said that the special prosecutor in this case because at some point this was taken over from the da by a special prosecutor, the special prosecutor has engaged in the areas of law in order to go after citizens who were entirely innocent of any wrongdoing which they about that statement. This is in essence the wisconsin Supreme Court saying you abuse your power. You harass people and you did it to send the message, this is what happens to you if you keep playing in elections, this is what you can expect so you will have your homes rated, you will have to hire attorneys, spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees just because you decided to speak out. Host its honestly, its such a stunning book what you put together and it doesnt feel like america. It made me wonder as i drove here today on by the museum that proudly puts the First Amendment on the outside of the building that at some point we mayhave to put a black flag after that thing. Its a scary thing to. Many americans should know in the book, a lot of people might go well, this is what happens to groups that play in the big boys we, you know . You go out and youre going to run ads in elections or see days like the tea party wasnt go to demonstrations then maybe this is what happens. This is happening to average americans. Just for the crime of having political beliefs. One of the other hugely disturbing stories in this book happened out in california and that was when a number of californians donated money in favor of prop eight which was the ballotinitiative in support of traditional marriage. Activists out in that state went and got a hold of the names and addresses of those who have donated in favor of it and put them on a searchable walkable map and you can go literally from neighborhood to neighborhood and see where your quote, opponents live and the men and women who ended up on that list and on that map had their cars key, windows broken, they had scary messages left on their internet email and on their voicemail at home and it worked. Some of them had mom protesters show up outside their Small Businesses and would walk away so customers couldnt get in. The men lost their jobs, one of the most famous ones was brandon item mozilla but there were many more. I think one of the scariest things about it is a lot of these people gave depositions afterward about what had happened then and nearly all of them wrote at the end of their depositions, something along the lines of based on what happened to me, i would be very reluctant to take part in another ballot initiative. So thats the point is you intimidate people. You make in their lives out of the decide theyre not going to engage in democracy anymore. Host you hear both sides must do these tactics. What do you hear when you see people who are engaged but watch politics from afar say yes, really but thats both sides. Republicans and democrats, everybody who does this before two things on that. Government abuse is obviously onesided. I think theres a couple of reasons for that. When i started this i care about free speech and the First Amendment. Im a libertarian when it comes to this and i dont think, i have no allegiance to one party or the other and i went into this, ive written a lot about the abuses on the left for my column in the wall street journal but i assumed going in that i was going to find a lot of stuff on the right to. I didnt. Therewere a couple of examples and they are in there, i put them in there. Back in 2004, the Bush Administration , their irs order to investigate a liberal church in california that on the eve of the reelection it appeared to have endorsed john kerry and suddenly the irs is looking into this group and that came out and the blowback was huge and they immediately backed off but nothing like the irs targeting scandal. Host you had a congressman, a democratic congressman look that up and went to the gao. There was rhetoric and intensity coming from the democrats. Guest they were appalled that the irs might state on something so political and partisan area by the way im happy to say republicans were to and there was a bipartisan backlash to this saying no, so i think thats one reason why things immediately did back law. But i think thats part of it, you dont find it so much and i think its in part because conservatives do take very seriously some of these Constitutional Values and belief that restraint to be part of their job. Its interesting in response to all of this, this exxon case weve seen lately where you have these 20 attorney general, liberal attorney generals for now suggesting they might be racketeering charges against exxon for the crime of not taking the lightweight on climate. And you know, on the ground supposedly they had issued in the past Climate Science on exxon investors. We had a group of Republican Attorney generals who will response came out and said can you imagine if we do this . We could essentially bring a fraud charge against a Renewable Energy company for cleaning that was saving the planet. Isnt defrauding its own shareholders . Given the cost, given selling drugs . It could have been many of the things that showed that the Renewable Energy sectors has a lot of problems, asave the planet yet so your argument being good do this but we dont because we dont think that its an appropriate use of power. I think thats one thing. You do see taxes that are used similarly although not nearly as much by the right is on the left as what got against businesses a protest against businesses but with one big distinction. I think everyone should have the right to not use a service if they dont want to , to not buy a product if they dont want to and that is often what right does,they say were not going to buy bed and jerrys ice cream or were not going to , thats one thing. The left is different because they have a demand that goes along withit. Their demand is , we are not going to stop harassing and intimidating you until you voluntarily give up your constitutional right to speak and i do think that is wrong. Everyone is given their constitutional rights. Corporations have a constitutional right to speak and when the threat of harassment and intimidation is about getting an organization to give up a constitutional right, i think that is different in measure. Youre making me think of the story you tell on American Legislative Exchange council, alex. They saw that a lot of corporations who remembered how were blackmailed and almost felt like they paid more. Guest what happened here is alex, American Legislative