Mr. Daniel J. Bryant             VIA CERTIFIED RETURN RECEIPT
Counsel and Senior Advisor
U.S. Department of Justice - Main
950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Room 5228
Washington, DC 20530
 

Mr. Bryant:

I demand an apology. I demand a response to our Petition for Redress.

I have never felt so harmed -- so damaged -- so disappointed -- so betrayed -- by anyone’s behavior, official or otherwise, as I am in yours, after reading your letter to Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, dated April 18, 2002, a copy of which came into my possession on November 21, 2002 and is attached hereto as Exhibit A.

In the nine months from July 20, 2001 to April 18, 2002 your principles were turned upside down -- you turned your coat.

On July 20, 2001, you and I entered into a contract: I would end my hunger fast and you would do everything in your power to have experts from DOJ participate in a two-day meeting on Capitol Hill in September, with experts from the IRS, to answer questions from the WTP organization regarding the legality of the income tax system.

First you breached our agreement and now you have issued an official written statement that is not in the public interest, will certainly expose WTP and me to public ridicule and contempt and appears intended to deliberately injure our reputations.

You have falsely accused WTP of promoting "tax fraud schemes" that have been used to "defraud honest American taxpayers" who have then been "convicted by juries of their peers and sentenced to serve time in prison."

Your words not only contradict your written word and official behavior as Assistant Attorney General on July 20, 2001 (and that of Lawrence Lindsey at the White House and IRS Commissioner Rossotti), they disclose an enthusiastic willingness to declare what you know to be falsehoods for the express purpose of harming WTP and me and deceiving others

This, my response to your April 18, 2002 letter, is overextended in length due to the historical significance of your letter and the need to provide an abundance of authentic, real and factual evidence in rebuttal.

Attached hereto are copies of Lawrence Lindsey’s letter to me dated July 18, 2001 (Exhibit B), your written agreement of July 20, 2001(Exhibit C), Roscoe Bartlett’s e-mail message to you dated July 30, 2001 (Exhibit D and D-2) and Congressman Bartlett’s letter to me dated October 12, 2001 (Exhibit E).
(ed. note -- link includes short Bartlett video)

What has become painfully obvious after examination of your letter is the fact that on July 20, 2001 you deliberately deceived me into ending my hunger fast. Together with the White House (Lawrence Lindsey) and the IRS (Commissioner Rossotti), you deceptively convinced me to end my hunger fast by promising that experts from DOJ and the IRS would meet with our experts, in a public forum, to answer our questions and address our evidence regarding the fraudulent and illegal federal income tax system.

I took your word and Commissioner Rossotti’s word (given by telephone to Congressman Bartlett the day before – July 19), to be the "substantive response" referred to in Mr. Lindsey’s letter of July 18, 2001. We negotiated every aspect of the meeting, then planned for September on Capitol Hill, wherein experts at DOJ and IRS would meet with the experts from the Tax Honesty Movement and answer their questions. I then looked into your eyes, shook your hand and took your personal written and spoken commitment that you would do everything within your power to see that the two-day meeting would be held without a hitch and that we would receive the answers to our questions – answers that you agreed we were entitled to.

Your April 18, 2002 letter is sophistry at its best and libel at its worst. Your reasoning is sound on the surface only. When viewed in the bright light of the facts and alongside the record of events (see below), your letter officially refusing to respond to our questions and the People’s Petition for Redress is despicable and has revealed the utter disdain our government has for the People and our Rights.

Your letter, therefore, in terms of the public interest, is worthless, except for its value in enlightening the People further about the real and present danger – the unfortunate alteration of our government – the politicization and corruption of the Fundamental Law – a corruption that has infected, and has now been evidenced, in the highest law enforcement agency in the land – the United States Department of Justice.

Your letter only adds fuel to the passions of the growing body of liberty-minded Americans who love their country and their Constitution, but who have come to despise their government due to its lack of respect for the Constitution. (Footnote)

Your penning of a signed, official memorandum articulating DOJ’s refusal to answer the well-documented allegations of the People -- even via the specific request of a U.S. Congressman -- may well come to ignite the very firestorm of outrage you have sought to contain by your concealment of the truth and the abuse of your office and the police and prosecutorial powers granted your agency.

Your reasons for deciding not to respond to our questions and the People’s Petition for Redress are conspicuously without substance. Your mischaracterizations of our legal and Constitutional positions are pitiable, deserving only contempt.

Your letter of April 18, 2002, and the remarks of Henry Hyde on October 3, 2002, while chairing the House Committee on International Relations, reinforce the People’s decision reached on November 14, 2002, on the National Mall, at the conclusion of Freedom Drive 2002 – "No answers, No taxes." Exhibit F hereto is a copy of the formal statement I gave that day, from the podium on the Mall, to a national audience via a live webcast, setting forth our rational behind our decision.

Among other things, you have labeled WTP as a "promoter of tax fraud schemes." This is patently false -- but you said it anyway in order to harm the Foundation and me. We have schemed all right. But our scheme -- our carefully arranged and systematic program of action -- has been aimed at forcing the government to honor its obligation to respond to a proper Petition for Redress of Grievances – to the People’s questions -- regarding the income tax system. Our program of action – our scheme – was initiated after we became familiar, in 1999, with a substantial and credible body of evidence pointing to fraudulent and illegal behavior of the government and its abuse of its constitutionally limited taxing powers. (Footnote)

Our systematic program has been undertaken for the sole purpose of attaining a formal response to the People’s Petition for Redress of Grievances regarding the fraudulent origin and illegal operation of the federal income tax system. (Footnote)

You say WTP is merely interested in promoting a "tax fraud scheme", but you offer no evidence in support of this specious allegation. If by this you mean we are educating Americans about the actual content of US tax law and the significant limits of federal jurisdiction to enforce this tax -- you are correct.

If however, you are publicly claiming that we are promoting illegal activity or fraud -- your words meet the legal standard for libel and you will be called to defend your position if you do not issue an apology. Your assertion that we are engaged in anything other than constitutionally protected activities is totally baseless.

Any reasonable person will conclude that the real promoter of tax fraud is the government itself. For the proof one need only examine the evidence of fraud committed under color of law, as compiled by the Tax Honesty Movement, and combine those facts (still un-refuted) with the chronology of evasion by the government to avoid every opportunity that has been presented to it to publicly address the evidence and answer our questions.

Instead of directly responding to our questions you have summarily waved them off saying only that they are "frivolous" and not worth notice, notwithstanding the fact that in July 2001, you explicitly stated, and we published in our July 30, 2001 press release (and Rep. Bartlett confirmed this), that "Bryant agreed with Bartlett and Schulz that under the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution the American people are entitled to answers. Since for many years many individuals and groups have asked for answers to similar or identical questions it was agreed in the meeting that this hearing is in the nation's interest." See Exhibit D-2 attached hereto.

You say all our questions have already been answered, but you fail to mention, much less prove where and when even one of our questions has been answered, much less all 538 of them! You know what you have said is not true, but you have said it anyway in an attempt to deflect responsibility for your personal deceptions, your failure to uphold your oath of office and your breach of your contract with the People.

Most revealing is your accusation that I (Bob Schulz) am being "disrespectful to the Constitution." I ask you: Who is being "disrespectful" of the Constitution? A man who peacefully, intelligently, rationally and professionally comes before his servant government to exercise his Right to Petition for Redress – i.e., to ask his government to justify its allegedly unconstitutional and illegal behavior, or a government servant who holds a high position of public trust, commands an army of armed federal agents, and who steadfastly refuses to honestly respond to the Petition for Redress, even after promising to do so, thereby breaching a contract and violating his oath of office?

Need I remind you that our Constitution is a set of principles to govern YOU -- the government -- not the People. One of the People’s primary functions, regarding the Constitution, is to defend it by confronting government when it takes a step outside the boundaries the People have drawn around its power by the very terms of the Constitution. By the terms of the Constitution, we the People have set up our government, and by the terms and conditions of the Constitution, the People have not only enabled the government to act (by giving up a little of our power to the government), we have guaranteed our individual, unalienable Rights and heavily prohibited and restricted the government’s behavior. All government officials are required to take the oath to honor and respect the Constitution. By its terms, our Constitution guarantees my right to Petition for Redress and government’s obligation to respond.

In sum, your April 18, 2002 letter has finally made official what we have known for nearly one year, that is, the government officials’ refusal to honor their constitutional obligation to respond to our Petition for Redress of Grievances regarding the income tax (and respect their oaths of office) is based on its fear of the People.

You, and your superiors know full well that if the government’s experts were forced to address our evidence and answer our questions truthfully, in a public forum, you would, in effect, be admitting that the government of the United States of America has been operating outside the limits of the Constitution. You would be admitting that you care not what boundaries the People have drawn around your power by the terms and conditions of the Constitution. You would be admitting that the government no longer sees itself bound by the chains of our Constitution. You would be admitting to the greatest hoax ever perpetrated by any government on any people in history.

Based on the history of this nation, you know that the People would bring you before them and hold you accountable to them. There would be severe political ramifications and the People would most likely, severely curtail the power of the federal government and refuse to fund it any longer, except via truly Constitutional means. (Footnote)

The record of the government’s behavior since July 20, 2001 speaks for itself – neither you, Commissioner Rossotti nor the President’s White House spokesman on the issue, Lawrence Lindsey, have had any intention to honor your commitments. Your letter of April 18, 2002 is the final straw.

Key to the restoration of our Constitution is the Peoples’ unalienable right to Petition for Redress of Grievances and our servant government’s obligation to respond.

Our Founding Fathers knew that if the People allowed the government to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the People’s Petitions for Redress of Grievances it would be the final expression of tyranny and despotism in America, the beginning of the end of our Constitutional Republic with its system of "separate powers’ and checks and balances, the beginning of the end of the Great American Experiment -- government of, by and for the People, the beginning of the end of government based on the consent of the People, and the beginning of the end of the most wonderful and powerful expression of the Creator’s intent for civil government – popular sovereignty and constitutionally guaranteed individual, unalienable rights.

If the People rest satisfied, or apparently satisfied, without opposition and discontent, allowing the government to turn a deaf ear to the People’s intelligent and rational Petitions for Redress of Grievances, the People will, in effect, be turning their backs on the Creator and on humanity.

Must the People acquiesce? No, of course not. As a free People, it is we who possess the ultimate Power in our society. We must, and will, now use it.

Among the divinely inspired words of the Founding Fathers were these: "If money is wanted by Rulers who have in any manner oppressed the People, they may retain it until their grievances are redressed, and thus peaceably procure relief, without trusting to despised petitions or disturbing the public tranquility." (Footnote)

The Founding Fathers could hardly have used words more clear when they declared, "the people … may retain [their money] until their grievances are [remedied]."

By these words, the Founding Fathers fully recognized and clearly stated that the Right of Redress of Grievances includes the Right of redress before payment of taxes, that this Right of redress before taxes lies in the hands of the People and that this Right is the People’s non-violent, peaceful means to procuring a remedy to their grievances without having to depend on -- or place their trust in -- the government’s willingness to respond to the People’s petitions and without having to resort to violence.

This very American Right of Redress of Grievances Before Taxes has always been deeply embedded in our law. The time has come for the People to use it.

The only practical, peaceful and morally appropriate option available to the People, under our present circumstances, is to withhold the payment of taxes from the government. Without money, the government cannot continue to operate outside the boundaries the People have drawn around its power, i.e., it cannot continue its abuse of power.

On November 14, 2002, the government again refused to respond to the People’s proper and well-researched Petitions for Redress concerning grave matters of freedom and liberty. It chose the line of direction the People must now take. Our mission is now clear.

We believe the only non-violent option available is for employees, employers and the self-employed across this nation to hold and keep in their possession money they would otherwise have turned over to the government.

Ironically, in the context of income taxes, and as the research of a growing body of credentialed professionals and researchers in the Tax Honesty Movement has conclusively established, federal tax laws do not apply to most Americans’ "income" and, in any event, cannot be enforced by the US government inside the fifty states for lack of bona fide federal legislative jurisdiction. So in effect, we will be issuing a call for massive "civil obedience", i.e., "Redress BEFORE Taxes", i.e., "No Answers, NO TAXES."

Due to the utmost significance of the matter to the free People of America, I will now hold your April 18, 2002 letter up to censure by exposing its duplicity, point-by-point.

(Continued. . . )

Click Here to Read Part 2 of Schulz’s Letter to Bryant, DOJ