Death of Mike Durney (1/11/26; 1/16/26)

I received an email from Roger Olsen advising that Mike Durney died yesterday, 1/10/26. He received the information from Mike’s daughter. Updated 1/16/26 @ 3:00pm: The obtuary is here. The obituary indicates that service will be held 2/7/26 @ 11:00am at St. Patricks Episcopal Church, 4700 Whitehaven Pkwy NW, Washington, DC 20007.

My database indicates that Mike's service with DOJ Tax was

TAX DIV ALUMNI SECTIONS

SECTION	POSITION	BEGYEAR	ENDYEAR
FRONT OFFICE	DEP A.A.G, ACTING A.A.G	1986	1988
REFUND 3	TRIAL ATTORNEY	1968	1972

Mike was predeceased by his wife, Ann Belanger Durney, longtime DOJ Tax Appellate attorney, who died in October 2001.

Correction 1/11/26 10:30pm. I posted a church for the services that appears to be the wrong church. Accordingly, I have deleteed that information; on 1/16/26 @ 3pm, I posted the correct information above.

Interesting Article Featuring DOJ Tax Attorneys (Now Alumni) (1/11/26)

Alumni might be interested in this recent article: Jens Heycke, Tax Enforcers Are Actually the Good Guys (The Dispatch 1/6/26), here. The subtopic is: By cutting resources for prosecuting rich tax cheats, the Trump administration is leaving billions of dollars on the table.

Here is the most relevant excerpt for the Tax Division:

          In 2014, a group of Department of Justice Tax Division attorneys went to a Washington Nationals game, hoping to enjoy a night off watching baseball. But when a camera found them and the ballpark’s Jumbotron flashed “DOJ Tax Division,” the stadium booed them so loudly it rattled the ice cubes in their drinks.

          Few government functions provoke as much reflexive hostility as tax enforcement. This is not lost on the IRS. Its Washington headquarters appears on Google Maps under the obscure label “DC0022 Government Office,” as if anonymity might spare it from the public’s animus. It doesn’t. Nearly 80 percent of the reviews of the building on Constitution Avenue are one star, with comments like: “Horrible organization that needs to be shut down.”

          But here’s what those reviewers and the Nationals crowd missed: The same year those DOJ tax prosecutors got booed, they forced Credit Suisse to pay $2.6 billion for its role in assisting ultra-rich tax evaders. With one settlement, they recovered more than 20 times their annual budget. Meanwhile, the prosecutor who told me about the Nationals Park episode was spearheading another massive investigation. The case, which involved data encrypted into photographs, false-bottom briefcases, and custom-encrypted servers, was settled last month for more than $750 million.

Also, the following except may not be right in that the DOJ Tax Criminal attorneys were transferred to the Criminal Division:

          This year, the Trump administration dismantled the DOJ’s Tax Division, dispersing its attorneys and enforcement functions. The specialists who know how to chase money hidden offshore were relocated to regional U.S. Attorney offices, where they will be assigned to other tasks. Many of the top tax prosecutors have resigned.

Also, I recommend that those with time and interest browse the comments to the article.

Heycke also authored Death, Taxes, and Turduckens: Unraveling History’s Biggest Tax Heist And the Broken System That Enabled It (2025), Amazon here, about the Brockman tax fraud, prosecution, and death avoiding conviction. For Federal Tax Crimes Blog posts on Brockman, see here.

 

Death of Lillie Davis Neamo (1/11/26)

Lillie Davis Neamo passed away 1/1/26. See WAPO obituary here. According to the obituary, she served at DOJ for 42 years and “served as a Supervisory Litigation Assistant for the Tax Division, Appellate Section,” which I presume was her most recent position at DOJ Tax.

According to the obituary, events on 1/14/26 are visitation (10-11am) and service (11am-12pm) at Marshall-March Funeral Homes - The District of Columbia, 5119 4th St. NW, Washington, DC 20011.

DOJ Tax Alumnus John Dowd Speaks Up for Jack Smith (12/18/25)

John Dowd, a DOJ Tax Alumnus, authored this opinion piece in MS Now:  I was Donald Trump’s lawyer. Jack Smith should be celebrated, not vilified (MS Now 12/16/25), here. 

Of course, every person who has bothered to become informed and is not blinded by bias (ideology, self-promotion, etc.) knows that Jack Smith is a class act. Smith should be able to tell his side of the story in an open public session where everyone participating (Smith and congressmen) can show who they really are.

Dowd also is a class act. Dowd’s Wikipedia page is here.

Great Article on DOJ Tax Alumnus, George Elias (12/16/25)

Florida Bar News has this article: Samadhi Jones, Miami's George Elias nears 99 still practicing, mentoring, and giving back (12/15/25), here.

DOJ Tax relevant excerpts:

At age 23, in his first job out of law school, Elias found himself sitting before the U.S. Supreme Court at the solicitor general’s table on the team that handled treason cases before Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Hugo Black, et al. Chief Justice Warren himself admitted Elias to the Supreme Court Bar less than two years later. Elias later transferred to the tax division before moving to Miami where he opened a private practice in trust and tax law, a practice that he continues to operate today.

It is not clear to me, but I infer that he may have been first in the SG’s office and then transferred to the Tax Division. If so, that would have been an unusual trajectory to the Tax Division.

There is much more about his life in the article. I highly recommend that DOJ Tax Alumni click the link and read it.

Hubbert Article on Tax Division Demise (10/24/25)

David Hubbert, for AAG Tax, has written a thoughtful article for Blomberg: David Hubbert, What to Watch for in the Wake of the Tax Division’s Demise (BloombergLaw Tax Management Memo 10/24/25), here. All of it is good, so I don’t try to summarize it.

Karen Kelly Article on Federal Tax Prosecutions Before and After Department of Justice Tax Division Is Eliminated (10/19/25)

I point DOJ Tax Alumni to Karen Kelly and Caroline Rule’s article titled Federal Tax Prosecutions Before and After Department of Justice Tax Division Is Eliminated (White Collar Crime Litigation 9/22/25), here. Kelly was formerly a leader in the Tax Division before its demise at the behest of the Trump Administration. Kelly is now with Kostelanetz where Caroline Rule is a partner. Caroline Rule is a major force in tax crimes.

I have been trying to determine how the DOJ Tax functions would be folded into the DOJ Civil and Criminal Divisions, respectively. The article says:

According to the reorganization, the Civil Tax Division attorneys and the Criminal Tax Division attorneys will be relocated from the Tax Division into their respective components  at the DOJ: the DOJ Civil Division and the DOJ Criminal Division. There will then be a separate tax section within each division. Within the Civil Division, the tax attorneys will be renamed the Tax Litigation Section, which will include the six geographical Civil Trial Sections, 1 the Court of Federal Claims unit, the Office of Review, and the Appellate unit. On the criminal tax side, the attorneys will be moved into the Tax Section of the Criminal Division, which will include the three geographical regions and the Criminal Appeal unit. At least initially, the criminal attorneys will continue to be organized by geographic regions within the Tax Section. Presently, the regions are Northern Criminal Enforcement Section, Southern Criminal Enforcement Section, and Western Criminal Enforcement Section.

I infer that the pyramid structures in both DOJ Tax Civil and Criminal will be moved into the DOJ Civil and Criminal Sections, respectively. Presumably, some of the top level DOJ Tax Civil and Criminal Sections functions will be thinned out or eliminated, but some type of pyramid structure will remain. The basic work functions to line level attorneys will remain the same.

I await an org chart from the DOJ Civil and Criminal Divisions to get a better fix on this.

Editorial Comment by Former DOJ Tax Prosecutor on The Federal Prosecutor’s Decision Not to Charge (10/17/25)

DOJ Tax Alumni may be interested in this Editorial Comment by a DOJ Tax Alumnus, Mike Romano: The Federal Prosecutor’s Decision Not to Charge (Justice Connection 10/17/25), here

. A somewhat long excerpt from the beginning:

The decision not to charge someone is a critical part of a prosecutor’s job, but it often goes unseen. I learned this first-hand during my 18 years as a DOJ prosecutor – prosecuting tax fraud across the country, violent crimes in Washington, D.C., then January 6 cases with the Capitol Siege Section, and later public corruption cases with the Public Integrity Section (before this administration dismantled it.

Criminal charges, after all, come with a host of consequences, whether or not the person charged is ever convicted. Police may take the person into custody, depriving them of their liberty, even if only for a few hours. They may be compelled to appear in court and sit through a trial, both of which are further deprivations of liberty. That person will need a defense attorney, the cost of which can be astronomical. And the mere fact of criminal charges, and an arrest record, can cause real harm to a person’s reputation and employability, even if that person is never convicted.

Every federal prosecutor I worked with took the decision to charge—or, not to charge—extremely seriously. And when an investigation convinced me that no crime had been committed, or the wrong person had been accused, I was proud not to bring charges, or to dismiss charges that were unwarranted.

Doing this was my legal, ethical, and moral obligation; it was, in my view, the sort of exercise that made the Department’s use of power legitimate.

Justice Department prosecutors have a guide called the Principles of Federal Prosecution, which helps them determine when a case should or should not be brought. One of those principles is the following:

[A]s a matter of fundamental fairness and in the interest of the efficient administration of justice, no prosecution should be initiated against any person unless the attorney for the government believes that the admissible evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a guilty verdict by an unbiased trier of fact.

Romano's editorial comments echo the foundational speech by Attorney Robert Jackson later Supreme Court Justice) in 1940, titled The Federal Prosecutor, DOJ link here; alternative link here. (I provide an alternative link because I can't be sure it will stay on the DOJ website since its sentiments are not the sentiments of the current powers that be in DOJ.)

Fillable On-Line Form to Assess Interest in DOJ Tax Alumni Reunion/Wake (10/7/25)

In the immediate past post, I sought input on the possibility of a DOJ Tax Division Alumni Reunion/Wake in May 2025 at the time of the ABA Tax Section Meeting May 7-9, 2026. I have set up a Google Form for Alumni to state their interest.

The Google Form is here: https://forms.gle/pGkKfz73NUvSQ1EAA

I urge Alumni who may be interested to complete the form so that those in the planning group (yet to be formed) can gauge interest and identify an appropriate venue for the event.

Also, since the DOJ Tax Alumni are far larger in number (by many multiples) than my current email list, please forward the link to the Form to as many DOJ Tax Alumni as you know. I will regret Alumni who might be interested not knowing of the event.

Thank you.

Jack Townsend.

Assessing Interest in a Final DOJ Tax Division Alumni Reunion/Wake and Making it Happen (10/4/25)

Alumni may remember that in the 1990s and early 2000s, we had 5-year Tax Division Alumni Reunion Events. With the demise of the Tax Division, I thought it might be appropriate to have a final reunion/wake. As before, I think the best time is contemporaneous with the ABA Tax Section May Meeting, the next being May 7-9, 2026, which might attract many non-D.C. area alumni to attend.

Please share your thoughts on whether this is a feasible project. And let me know your thoughts as to how to make it happen. Additionally, some volunteers to help make it happen would be greatly appreciated.

Please share this information with alumni you may know so that, hopefully, we can make the event as well attended as possible.

You may email me at jack@tjtaxlaw.com or comment below.

Thanks,

Jack Townsend