IRS Commissioner’s Top Aide Visited White Houses Hundreds of Times, No Explanation

While congressional lawmakers are questioning why former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman paid dozens of visits to the White House during his tenure, Shulman’s top political aide seems to have spent even more time working side-by-side with members of the Obama administration.

White House visitor logs show Shulman’s chief of staff, Jonathan M. Davis, appears to have visited the White House and adjacent Eisenhower office building as many as 310 times between the fall of 2009 and February 2013.

Davis’ background is in technology and had no expertise on tax issues , according to some IRS sources who said Davis served mostly as a political aide who served with Shulman to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, where Shulman was vice chairman, and then followed him to the IRS.

Jason Stverak, head of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, said the visits raise more questions about the connection between the White House and the IRS at a time when the tax agency was targeting conservative groups. IRS officials said the targeting was initiated internally, but lawmakers have suggested that someone higher up in the administration had actually ordered the targeting.

“Why does this person have to go there 300 times when they probably don’t have the staff expertise to be discussing tax issues?” Stverak asked.

Read more from this story HERE.