“The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to limit what the federal government could do. Any interpretation of a provision of the Bill of Rights as a grant of federal power is ipso facto wrong.”
“They picked up Turner’s wife and his kid, and he turned himself in so she could get bonded out,” said a distressed Hank Lofton to his crew.
“They’re blaming him for our bombings, and for the mass shooting,” stated Jaxon Haines, one of his lieutenants.
“What the hell are we going to do about it?” demanded another of Lofton’s crew.
“We are going to hit more targets,” responded Lofton angrily.
“More? Is this to help exonerate Zach?” asked Haines.
“Partly, because it will confuse them. They will claim this is his team’s response to him getting arrested. Unfortunately for Zach, it won’t do anything publicly to help him. They haven’t stopped their pursuit of us, so we won’t stop our pursuit of them,” said Lofton confidently. “We are going to impact their ability to conduct war against us. Every damned IRS employee should lose sleep over going to work the next day. They need to think about it. If we can impact operations by having at least twenty percent of the IRS workforce staying home, then we’ve reduced their ability to wage war on us.”
“How violent are we going to get, Hank?” asked a concerned Haines.
Lofton stood up from his chair and, leaning over the table, he placed both hands flat on the surface as he got closer to Haines.
“They operate by invoking terror on U.S. citizens. We will turn the tables on them and invoke terror on them,” said Lofton. His face reddened and veins in his temples bulged under his skin.
During the early morning hours of the next day, letters in envelopes were carefully taped on the front doors of dozens of television stations under the cover of darkness. The stations were carefully chosen by location where large IRS processing centers were located and for media who had provided extended coverage of the previous IRS bombings.
As early morning news crews began showing up to work on the east coast, the producers were faced with the dilemma of whether to make the letters public. All the stations contacted the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. The FBI asked all the stations that contacted them to not broadcast the letters; however, most of the stations felt it newsworthy and that they should make the public aware of the new threats.
At the ABC affiliate in Austin, the early morning show began its broadcast, with the letter they received, as the lead story.
“We begin today’s broadcast with this breaking news. This station has received a letter that directly threatens all twenty-two-hundred IRS employees that work at the Austin processing center and various other IRS locations in the city of Austin. It is a chilling warning. We would like to warn our audience that the nature of this letter, this threat―is chilling and could be disturbing to some viewers,” the host said with a concerned look on her face. “We have contacted law enforcement officials; however, neither law enforcement nor this station can confirm the authenticity of this letter. We will tell you that other outlets have received the same letter, but we do not have an exact count of how many television stations received the same letter.”
She then looked down at a document in front of her and began reading.
“To All IRS Employees,
Beginning today and from this day forward, we have randomly selected various IRS locations across the country to target in response for your unapologetic terror of American citizens that, frankly, has gone on way too long.
IRS locations will be bombed from time to time. The previous bombings were purposely designed as a warning. By our grace alone, no IRS personnel were injured. Since the IRS and Congress have not acted since those bombings to stop government-sanctioned terror on our citizens by your continual violations of due process and the Fourth Amendment, we have no choice but to act.
Therefore, we consider every single IRS employee a terrorist. You cannot escape us. We will continue to bomb your facilities. We will place snipers outside your IRS offices and will shoot you as you go in or as you come out, on a random basis. We will target you as you leave your homes. If you choose to go to work to terrorize Americans, beginning tomorrow you are putting your life at risk.
For those of you in Congress who facilitate the terrorists at the IRS, you too will be targets. You will not be safe, nor will your families be safe. For those judges who operate in the kangaroo courts known as the Tax Courts, you need to immediately find another line of work before it’s too late.
Our message to you is simple. You can no longer terrorize us without evoking terror on yourselves. By this time tomorrow morning, you will know we are serious.
Signed,
Americans for Freedom from IRS Terror
As the breaking news spread across the country, the attrition for IRS employees was noted, as more than thirty percent of workers did not go into their workplaces that morning. Some who showed up to work unaware of the broadcast of the letters left their posts immediately.
“We can’t put folks’ lives at risk,” stated the worried manager at the main office in Austin, who had given his employees a choice to stay or go. “Look how close we came to a disastrous situation not too long ago from this same group. I don’t think we can risk that. This time, it could turn deadly.”
IRS Commissioner Ivan Stanislau issued a press release about how dedicated the people of the IRS were, and stated that no terror threats would stop them from doing their mandated mission.
“This terror group hides in the shadows,” Stanislau announced to managers, “and they don’t have the guts to pull off anything serious,”
The news of the IRS threats began to overtake the daily updates on the mass shootings on all media outlets throughout the country as the lead story.
Commissioner Stanislau, who was embattled by GOP-led Congressional investigative committees accusing of him of lying to Congress about the targeting of political enemies in the Johnson administration, particularly targeting Tea Party organizations, was especially combative and asked for a news crew to video him leaving his home in the University Heights area of D.C. to prove to his employees that it was safe to go to work.
At least three national television crews and two local stations positioned satellite trucks on the crowded street to broadcast with live crews. The commissioner’s media manager had told the media outlets the commissioner would make a brief statement in his driveway before getting in his car and driving to the sprawling monolithic IRS headquarters on Constitution Avenue.
Ivan Stanislau was a weasely-looking fellow, with short gray hair, balding on top, and he wore round, silver-framed bi-focals. He didn’t look like he had the intestinal fortitude to make such a public gesture in defiance of a terror group. A career bureaucrat, he rose in the IRS ranks primarily because of his record as a tough, non-compromising revenue agent who had gained fame in high-profile criminal tax collection efforts. Although his record of collection was impressive, he was often cited for his overly zealous tactics that raised eyebrows at Treasury. The truth was that, since the IRS operates literally without regard to the Bill of Rights, he commonly used practices that would have gotten both civil and criminal cases thrown out of normal courts instantly.
Walking out his front door, wearing a grey wool coat, suit and tie and carrying a briefcase, the commissioner waved to cameras with an awkward smile as he walked to a bank of microphones set up on his small patch of front lawn. The media had been forewarned that the commissioner was only going to make a brief statement and would not take questions.
“Good morning,” Stanislau announced. “Like all dedicated IRS employees, I am going to work today to do the job the American people expect me to do. I, like my fellow IRS employees, will not be intimidated, threatened or terrorized by fringe, right-wing extremists, and we will continue to do our jobs. I want to thank my colleagues at the IRS, and I have full trust and confidence in the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments that they will keep us safe and catch these lunatics in short order. Thank you.”
The press tried to ask questions, but Stanislau waved them off. He walked about ten steps to his government-provided four-door sedan and opened the back door, reaching in to set his briefcase on the back seat. He then opened the front door and turned back to the cameras once again and waved.
Suddenly, a few of the reporters heard a muffled thud. The cameras caught Stanislau՚s head as it snapped back violently. His glasses flew off his face. Blood and brain matter splattered the door, windshield and inside the driver’s front seat area.
With live camera feeds rolling, the commissioner’s head snapped back upright, revealing a bullet hole right above the front left temple with blood streaming out. His face was expressionless. He remained standing for what seemed like seconds, then he slowly crumpled to the ground, his head hitting face first on the driveway. The back half of his head was mostly gone, and the grisly sight of blood, skull bone fragments and brain matter all over the car were exposed in plain sight of the cameras. Screams sounded in the background from the reporters and crews on the scene as the reality slammed into their collective consciousness.
The cameras continued to broadcast live to the world as chaos broke out and the live cameras were dropped or knocked over as the crews realized what had happened. Crews scrambled as they instantly became aware they were in some type of live-shooter scenario, not knowing where the next shot would come from or who would be the target. There was no police presence for the live taping of Stanislau’s press event.
Lofton’s operative ducked down behind a roof wall on top of an apartment building four doors down and cattycornered across the street. He unscrewed his noise suppressor and took apart his modified M24 sniper rifle, putting it into his backpack. He climbed down the fire escape to the ground, stepped into a walkway between two fence lines and walked two blocks to a waiting car. As soon as he got in the car, the sniper changed shirts, took off his wig, hat and mustache and a faux paunch belly. No one noticed him.
Many of the live television feeds were cut off by producers back in studio once they realized what they were transmitting to the world. Instantly, the video of the assassination of Ivan Stanislau went viral. Soon thereafter, a tweet on a Twitter feed from a brand-new Twitter account named “The Great Purge” stated:
“This is only the beginning. We warned IRS not to go to work terrorizing Americans. Let this be notice to all IRS employees from today forward. #thegreatpurge”
Within a few minutes, that tweet was followed by:
“The IRS commissioner has made a career of terrorizing innocent Americans and political enemies. That career ended today. #thegreatpurge
Followed a few minutes later by:
“There is no one we cannot reach. Do you hear that, Congress? President Bartlett? Close the IRS now, for good! #thegreatpurge
The tweets came from Hank Lofton as he sat on a concrete city park bench on the Galveston sea wall, looking out at the Gulf of Mexico. He stood up, about to walk down the steps to the vacant beach, when he decided to send one more tweet.
“Zach Turner, who the govt has in custody, is not associated with #thegreatpurge.”
Lofton walked down the steps to the edge of the waves pounding the beach from the Gulf. After meticulously wiping it down, he took the prepaid temporary phone he’d used and threw it as far as he could into the water. One couldn’t be too careful.