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Really, Michele? "Hundreds?"
Bachmann's lawyerly background is better and worse than she claims - Politics Wires - MiamiHerald.com
Bachmann appears to have represented the IRS only twice in cases tried in U.S. Tax Court - both small cases - according to a search of judicial records by attorney Melissa Wexler, a research expert at Westlaw, a major provider of computerized records.
One was a win against a White Earth Indian Reservation resident named Marvin Manypenny, who contended that part of his modest income was not taxable under treaty rights.
Mary Streitz, the Minneapolis lawyer who represented Manypenny in that 1992 case, said she remembers Bachmann as "well dressed and professionally mannered." She said the case was "very, very small" but had the twist of involving federal Indian law. Manypenny, she said, was sworn in with a peace pipe.
The other court case Bachmann litigated, according to Wexler's records search, was a 1990 IRS win against a blue-collar Gateway Foods worker from La Crosse, Wis., who didn't file a tax return for several years. The most he ever made during those years was $23,470 and his six-year tax deficiency was estimated by the IRS at $13,500, records show. The taxpayer, who lived with his parents for lack of money after a divorce, represented himself in court.
Colleagues from the IRS office say Bachmann was pleasant and never brought politics into her job.
Two of them distinctly remember her absences for pregnancy leaves. According to an internal staff memo dated Monday, April 13, 1992 - as the staff was gearing up for another frantic cycle of tax court hearings - Marcus Bachmann had informed the office on the preceding Friday that, "Michele is confined to bed rest and will not return to work until after her maternity leave." She gave birth to daughter Caroline two months later.
The memo was titled "Transfer of Michele Bachmann's inventory." It showed 11 cases that were in line for straightforward settlement; none required a trial.
Bachmann's lawyerly background is better and worse than she claims - Politics Wires - MiamiHerald.com