John Thornton, Stevens Acolyte

[wserra]

Back in 2013, our old friend Marc Stevens wrote one of his blog screeds about an IRS Revenue Officer named Jeffrey Wagner. He is a "professional liar", a "criminal", and Stevens will publicly shame him, by God. Unfortunately, Stevens appears ignorant of - well, a whole lot, actually, but in particular - the practice of Revenue Officers adopting pseudonyms when dealing with the public. Largely because of people like Stevens.

Anyway, according to Stevens, "Wagner" is an irredeemable miscreant because he won't supply Stevens (who had called him "several times") evidence that the law applies to his "client", one John K. Thornton. Thornton was the subject of an IRS summons, to produce records and answer questions. On August 13, 2013, Thornton appears pursuant to the summons, but not with records. Instead, he brought Stevens and someone named John Thomas, neither of whom could represent anyone before the IRS. They insisted that "the revenue officer prove constitution and tax code applied to him". In the absence of that "proof", Thornton refused to answer questions or provide documents. By this point, Wagner had thrown Stevens out, since he wouldn't stop talking.

After that useless meeting, Wagner sends Thornton a "last chance before we petition for enforcement" letter. In response, he receives not records, but rather two letters from Thornton. The first of these is garden-variety frontier gibberish, in which Thornton writes that, per the FDCPA, he wants "proof (evidence) of claim or proof of liability"; recall that, at this stage of the proceedings, all the IRS wants is records. On the other hand, Stevens clearly wrote most of the second letter; Thornton calls it "an unedited statement of the facts from a complaint about you sent to your area counsel John C. Schmittdiel by Marc Stevens proving you are harassing me under the guise of pretended authority". Given that Stevens simply babbles about how ol' meanie Wagner won't provide "evidence proving jurisdiction", I'm pretty sure that Wagner didn't lose a lot of sleep over that complaint.

Now, Stevens doesn't supply Thornton's name or the bottom line, for the usual reason - checking the result shows that the guy got crushed. The law here at issue was the authority of the IRS to issue a summons for documents and records. The petition in the resulting enforcement action details the chronology, and describes Stevens' "contribution" to the meeting with Wagner.

The resulting enforcement proceeding took a long time, for one simple reason - although Thornton, acting on Stevens' advice, was in fact in contempt on various occasions, most judges seriously dislike locking people up for civil contempt. Accordingly, Thornton received new dates for complaince over and over. Stevens was present in court for at least some of those appearances. The Dynamic Duo complained to anyone who would listen about Wagner and the AUSA - of course, since those complaints were nonsense, nothing came of them. Finally, in April of 2014, the M-J recommended (which recommendation the DJ adopted in toto) that the Thornton/Stevens motion to dismiss be denied and the summons enforced. He disposes of the Stevens/Thornton prolix blather concerning "no evidence of jurisdiction" in one sentence: "Because Respondent lives within the District of Minnesota, he is within the jurisdictional boundaries of the Court". He disposes of the Stevens/Thornton prolix blather concerning "no evidence the Constitution and law apply to me" in two further sentences: "he [Thornton] makes the conclusory statement that the purpose is not legitimate because the Government did not provide evidence that the Constitution and Internal Revenue Code give the Government authority to summon him. This circular argument does not meet Respondent’s 'heavy' burden."

Thornton moves to reargue, something that is almost never granted. The dubious prospects of Thornton's motion were not enhanced by his rephrased claim that "Basic principals (sic) of fairness, due process and rule 602 of the FRE require Wagner, the only witness against us have personal knowledge of facts proving the constitution and code apply to us." When a judge sees pronouncements like that, the only response they draw is laughter. Rule 602 says nothing of the kind. And citing "basic principles of fairness" and "due process", without more specific citations, is akin to requesting an explanation from someone who claims to have proven Fermat's Last Theorem and receiving the answer "Math".

This goes on for years, with Thornton filing dumb "motions to dismiss" every six months or so - all denied. Finally, in May of 2018, he retains a real lawyer. After five years, it's over in a month. Thornton is out all that time and money - including, of course, whatever he gave Stevens - for a result he could readily have obtained immediately. And he's fortunate that he had a patient judge. Someone else would have sent him to jail.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

Instead, he brought Stevens and someone named John Thomas…

Fnarr fnarr (Or is that just a British expression?)

[wserra]

I think it is a British expression. Since, however, I've watched "The Meaning of Life" the prescribed 47 times, I'm familiar with it.