Whistleblower 23711-15W, filed 3/20/18, should have known better. This is the third time I’ve blogged the sad tale of One-Fifteen Whiskey (check out my blogpost “The Second Time Around – Part Deux,” 8/1/17 for the previous two).

Of course IRS collected nothing, so One-Fifteen Whiskey is another casualty in the frontal assault on The Castle at the Ogden Sunset. But why they never used One-Fifteen Whiskey’s data dump comes out, finally.

IRS claimed the info was “tainted,” but never said why.

Turns out that Supervisory Special Agent S called up Criminal Tax Counsel Naamloze (names changed), who said “the stuff is protected by client-attorney privilege.”

There’s a lot of argy-bargy about the state of the administrative record and IRS’ attempts to backfill the same. And One-Fifteen Whiskey attempts to rule out the IRS’ Integrated Data Retrieval System on hearsay grounds, but they’re business records enough for Judge Lauber to let a subsequent Sunseteer rely on the notes of her predecessor preserved therein.

So poor One-Fifteen Whiskey is relegated to could’a-would’a-should’a arguments that couldn’t cut a warm frozen Margarita.

I’ve heard a lot. I mean, a lot. But I can’t tell anybody without the client’s consent. And I’m sure Judge Lauber is similarly situated.