U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.) in 1995 was the target of an Internal Revenue Service investigation in which the Justice Department ultimately decided not to pursue charges, spokesmen for the senator and the Justice Department said Sunday.
Justice Department spokesman Bert Brandenburg said he would not reveal what alleged wrongdoing the IRS suspected, except that it involved allegations the senator violated tax laws.
The IRS sought to begin criminal grand jury proceedings against Moseley-Braun in 1995, but the Justice Department turned down the agency after reviewing the evidence, Brandenburg said. Federal agencies must refer cases to the Justice Department to initiate prosecution.
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“There was not enough credible information to go forward,” Brandenburg said. ” . . . The Justice Department is not a rubber stamp for any agency, the IRS, the FBI, the DEA or any other agency.”
Moseley-Braun spokesman Michael Briggs said the senator does not know the subject of the probe and had not been aware of it before a media inquiry last week.
The IRS probe was announced through a statement Briggs faxed to news organizations Sunday afternoon.
The news comes as Moseley-Braun is engaged in a difficult re-election campaign against Republican challenger Peter Fitzgerald.
Brandenburg said attorneys in the Justice Department’s tax division made the decision not to continue with the Moseley-Braun probe after consulting with the department’s Public Integrity Division, which investigates possible corruption by office-holders. The department “applied long-standing grand jury principles” to evaluate the evidence, he said.
The IRS came back to the Justice Department, again seeking a grand jury investigation, “after they were unsuccessful in getting more information elsewhere,” Brandenburg said.
But “a final decision” against pursuing the matter was made, although the IRS was left free to investigate further and return if it obtained more evidence, Brandenburg said.
There is “no pending” Justice Department investigation into the tax allegations, he said.
Moseley-Braun’s former campaign manager and former fiance, Kgosie Matthews, is the subject of a IRS investigation into whether he converted the senator’s campaign funds to his personal use.
The Justice Department would not say whether the 1995 investigation was related to the Matthews probe.
IRS spokesman Frank Keith said federal privacy laws prohibited his agency from releasing any information on the investigation.
But Moseley-Braun’s office released a statement attributed to Patrick Dorsey, chief of criminal investigations for the IRS in Illinois, saying the senator currently is “not under investigation in any way, shape or form by the IRS.”
Dorsey could not be reached Sunday evening.