In early August of 2001, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agreed to attend a public hearing on Capital Hill and face representatives of We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education. The purpose of the meeting was so that the Foundation could ask questions of DOJ and IRS attorneys, face-to-face, in an open and public environment, in the hope of receiving straight answers to some very troubling questions about US tax law. Many of these troubling questions have gone unanswered by the government for 50 years or more and concern the impression that the federal government has committed fraud on a massive scale against the American people.

We The People refers to the hearing as the "Tax Honesty Hearing", or "Operation Honest Inquiry". Congressman Bartlett (R-MD), the hearing's congressional sponsor, referred to the hearing as the "Tax Policy Forum".

On August 4th and 5th, 2001, I attended the We The People legal research conference held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The purpose of the conference was to bring together under one roof, at one time, the sharpest legal minds in the Patriot movement. The attendees [approximately 40] were to tap into their individual areas of expertise and contribute to the construction of a list of questions that would be suitable to use at the hearing in Washington DC.

It was a significant event for me in that I was afforded the opportunity to meet a number of the "legends" of the Patriot movement. It was also a disturbing event for me in that the event lacked what the project needed most - a true leader.

Bob Schultz is the President of We The People Foundation and is the man most responsible for making the hearing a political reality. In that regard he deserves our thanks. He also seems to be a genuinely kind and decent man. Unfortunately, he is not "a leader of men". In my opinion the absence of that quality was felt in significant measure and was responsible for the conference not being as dynamic as it might have otherwise been. I think most of the men who attended were looking to be galvanized into a solid force that would be far more powerful than its individual parts. Anyone who has ever been a member of a hard-hitting group that has come together under a powerful and dynamic leader knows the feeling I speak of. In the end, the Las Vegas conference ended up being nothing more than a gathering of individuals pursuing goals that fortunately were generally focused in the same direction.

There were several work groups which tackled a number of different tax law concerns. The final work-product of every group was sent to a review committee (staffed completely by lawyers) whose job it was to review the work-product of the various groups and distill the questions down to the essentials that would be required at the hearing. At that time, the hearing was scheduled for Sept. 24th and 25th.

My contribution was to frame 70 questions regarding "jurisdiction". The majority of my questions pertained to the Constitutional limits of federal jurisdiction within the states of the Union, with the balance intersecting the issue of statutory jurisdiction. My final draft of 70 jurisdictional questions went to We The People's review committee on September 5th. On September 6th I resigned from the research team for a variety of reasons.

After the September 11th attacks, Bob Schultz decided to re-schedule the hearing. His rationale was that he did not want the hearings to be viewed as "divisive" in light of the attacks, and more specifically, the sudden awakening of America's formerly catatonic patriotism. I disagreed with that decision, but one of the reasons I'd resigned from We The People was that it appeared to me that Shultz only took advice from a very small group of men. As in the decision to delay the hearing, I didn't think the advice he was getting was very good. Nevertheless, the hearing date was postponed - several times.

Shortly after Bob Schulz announced that two February dates had been settled upon [the 27th and 28th], the entire venture fell apart. Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who had been pivotal in the early stages of the event, withdrew his participation. The disingenuous reason he gave was that Bob Schultz had crossed the line with his "Wait To File Until After The Trial" media campaign, which according to Bartlett, advocated the non-payment of taxes and bordered upon a criminal activity. Let's be plain - Congressman Bartlett's excuse doesn't hold water - legally or logically.

The deadline for taxpayers to file their returns is April 15th. The hearing was scheduled for the 27th and 28th of February. If Americans were convinced that the government had made its case, then they would have 6 weeks left to get their returns in the mail. For most Americans that shouldn't be much of a challenge. Conversely, if the government fell on its face and couldn't offer convincing answers to the questions that were to be presented by We The People, why should Americans file?

At the same time that Congressman Bartlett was slinking away in disgrace - under the cover of lies, he revealed that the DOJ and IRS were refusing to attend the hearing. Once again, this revelation was also dressed up in lies. Bartlett asserted in his statement that Schultz's "Wait to File" campaign had caused the government to withdraw. Poppycock! This hearing should be viewed by the US Treasury Department as a wonderful opportunity to let Americans see firsthand what the government has been alleging for years - namely that the Patriot movement is nothing more than a bunch of kooks and nuts who get a lot of otherwise "good Americans" into trouble, and that the movement should not be taken seriously. If we're all such numbskulls, why wouldn't the government simply show up at the hearing and do to us what George Foreman would do to Pee Wee Herman in the ring? Namely, take us apart step by step. Instead, Goliath is hiding from David, and because the American people should have no illusion as to why that is, I will explain.

The terms of the original hearing back in September required We The People Foundation to provide the DOJ and IRS attorneys with a complete list of all the "first tier" questions that were to be asked of the government attorneys at the hearing. [First tier questions are the first questions to be asked of the government on a specific subject and do not include any follow-up questions that may be asked in response to the government's rebuttal of a first tier question.] After We The People's review committee condensed the questions down as they thought appropriate, the list of first tier questions was sent to the government lawyers. Once again, if the Tax Honesty Movement (which is a facet of the Patriot movement) is full of garbage, then DOJ and IRS should have been falling all over themselves with laughter while reading the questions. They also should have been anticipating the hearing with great enthusiasm - an opportunity to clarify the record about the government's taxing authority, and be done with these pesky Citizens once and for all!

But wait! It gets better still for the government! We The People arranged to have the hearing "aired" over the internet, by something called a "webcast", which would allow anyone with internet access to view the hearings for a nominal fee - sort of like "pay per view" on your cable service. This would allow millions of Americans to see the hearings live while the government attorneys made mincemeat out of the poor stupid Patriots. Sounds like a pretty good deal for the government - We The People providing the means for any interested American to see the silliness of the Tax Honesty Movement.

But wait! There's more! It gets even better still for the government! After the hearing, the company providing the webcast would also be offering a set of CD-ROMS containing the entire hearing so that Americans could watch the public humiliation of the Patriot movement over and over again! What a sweetheart deal for the government!

But alas, apparently not, because after the government attorneys reviewed the first tier questions, they decided that they would not attend the hearing. How odd! What could cause the government to forego such a wonderful opportunity to publicly humiliate and destroy growing opposition? I think the answer is obvious - once the government reviewed the questions, they realized that their goose was cooked. It would not be the Patriots who would suffer a crushing defeat, but the government itself. [Can you imagine the shock and irritation of the government attorneys when they realized that the Patriot movement was not comprised of inbred idiots!] Worse yet, they realized that if they attended the hearing, and the public could see for itself that the government could not support the lies that it has woven concerning tax law for the last 50 years, a spark might be lit that the government could not control, and that spark might well lead to an explosion of public sentiment that could mean an end to the corrupt and unconstitutional manner in which the tax code is enforced. Having said all this, let me be even more clear - the government is afraid. The government is afraid of the Tax Honesty Movement. The government is afraid of the Patriot Movement.

In places such as the United States District Courts, where the lies of government attorneys are welcomed and embraced by corrupt US judges, the government can drag Patriots into court and railroad individual members into jail, but these cowardly and corrupt officials know that such actions are only a stop-gap measure because one cannot put the truth in jail by putting the messengers in jail.

These same government attorneys, who appear all-powerful in the US District Courts, cannot face us publicly. They cannot face us in the light. They cannot face us where their answers can be seen and heard by any American with a computer and $25.00 for webcast coverage. They cannot face the American public openly because liars are condemned by their lies to live in a darkness of their own making. And let us not forget that these government attorneys are cowards of the highest order.

In conclusion, the lawyers of US Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service cannot attend the scheduled hearing in February because after seeing the questions they would be called upon to answer publicly, they know that they have no answers to offer. If they were to attend, all of America would quickly see that the Emperor has no clothes and US tax law is nothing more than a paper tiger.

The United States government has been committing fraud against you for more than 50 years. Their primary tool in this fraud has been silence when any legitimate government would feel a duty to speak plainly to its Citizens. The government continues to perpetrate the fraud against you by evading your righteous and legitimate questions, yet again. Interestingly, this is the same form of obstinate silence that the Colonist received from King George III when they attempted to seek redress of grievance from him. His silence led to the Revolutionary War. I wonder what the government's silence will lead to today? I can only hope that the Americans of today have as much vigor and love of liberty as their predecessors.

You may view We The People's questions by clicking here. You may view my jurisdictional questions by clicking here.