How ten high-profile Democrat Senators pressured the IRS to harass conservatives.
How ten high-profile Democrat senators pressured the IRS to harass conservatives.
Tag: IRS scandal
Newly released IRS emails show that the harassment of conservatives was directed by higher management in Washington and elsewhere, not confined to low level employees in Cincinnati.
Working for the Democratic Party: Newly released IRS emails show that the harassment of conservatives was directed by higher management in Washington and elsewhere, not confined to low level employees in Cincinnati.
The key fact here is that these emails prove that Lois Lerner and other officials in the Obama administration lied when they made the claim that the harassment was the work of low level employees.
But then, lying by this administration is par for the course.
Less than 24 hours after the House held Lois Lerner in contempt, the IRS has finally agreed to turn over all her emails to House investigators.
Less than 24 hours after the House held Lois Lerner in contempt, the IRS has finally agreed to turn over all her emails to House investigators.
Republican lawmakers have been demanding the documents for months and, in March, Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa threatened to hold IRS commissioner John Koskinen in contempt if he did not produce the e-mails requested by the committee. Koskinen had told lawmakers it might take years to produce them. [emphasis mine]
Years, eh? That’s suddenly changed, hasn’t it?
What happens next for Lois Lerner?
What happens next for Lois Lerner?
The article is an excellent legal analysis of the situation and what could happen next.
The House today voted to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt.
The House today voted to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt.
The case now heads to Eric Holder’s Justice Department. I would not hold my breath waiting for them to uphold the law.
The IRS audited 10 percent of all Tea Party donors, a rate much higher than for average Americans.
Working for the Democratic Party: The IRS audited 10 percent of all Tea Party donors, a rate much higher than for average Americans.
Republicans said 24 conservative groups were asked for their donor lists. The IRS initially told Congress that those lists were destroyed, but when they went through their files they discovered three lists that weren’t destroyed.
Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, asked the IRS to review the names on those lists to see whether any had been audited. The IRS reported back that 10 percent were audited — substantially higher than the average rate of 1 percent of average Americans who are audited each year.
In other words, the IRS acted as an agent of the Democratic Party to harass and strike fear into their opponents.
The new more sinister IRS scandal.
The new more sinister IRS scandal.
Yesterday was a significant day in the IRS abuse scandal. The scandal evolved from being about pesky delays in IRS exemption applications to a government conniving with outside interests to put political opponents in prison.
Emails obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act reveal Lois Lerner cooking up plans with Justice Department officials to talk about ways to criminally charge conservative groups that are insufficiently quiet.
Larry Noble, a law professor now with the Soros-funded Campaign Legal Center, was cited in the emails as someone agitating to jail conservatives who “falsely” report on IRS forms that they are not engaged in political speech. Lerner talked about setting up meetings with Justice Department election lawyers who wanted to talk about making Noble’s dreams a reality — this after Senator Sheldon Whitehouse raised the idea of criminal charges for conservatives who are not sufficiently quiet, charges that they falsely completed an IRS tax exemption form. [emphasis mine]
It might be illegal to claim tax exemption for non-political activities and then use that tax exemption to do politics, but it has to be emphasized that this law was only going to be used against those who disagreed with Obama and the Democrats. In other words, the IRS and the Obama administration weren’t really enforcing the law, they were thinking of using the law to put their opponents in prison.
The IRS scandal spreads.
This article does an excellent job of connecting the dots, both in terms of who and when, based on what we now know, from solid evidence. The author’s conclusion:
We now have a sitting Democrat congressman, Elijah Cummings, a sitting Democrat senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Federal Elections Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Internal Revenue Service all implicated in the scandal. Flax’s involvement puts the abuse squarely into the IRS commissioner’s office. But it takes an entity above all of those agencies to coordinate their actions. That entity can only be the White House.
Flax worked for the head of the IRS at the time, proving once again that this harassment was not instigated by “low-level employees in Cincinnati”, as claimed by Lois Lerner.
Newly released emails show that former IRS Official Lois Lerner discussed prosecution of conservative tax exempt groups with Eric Holder’s Justice Department even as she was publicly admitting that the harassment of conservatives was improper.
Working for the Democratic Party: Newly released emails show that former IRS Official Lois Lerner discussed prosecution of conservative tax exempt groups with Eric Holder’s Justice Department even as she was publicly admitting that the harassment of conservatives was improper.
A comprehensive list of Lois Lerner’s partisan effort to use the IRS to attack conservatives.
Working for the Democratic Party: A comprehensive list of Lois Lerner’s partisan effort to use the IRS to attack conservatives.
The Democrats in Congress, who have been circling the wagons to defend Lerner, really do remind me here of the Republicans in Congress in 1973. At that time, the Watergate scandal was unfolding, and Republicans were doing everything they could to defend Nixon, even though the evidence was very much against him. The consequence then for the Republican Party was election day 1974, when they experienced devastating losses.
In the end those loses forced reform in the Republican Party. The time has come for the Democratic Party to undergo the same reform process.
Emails now show that IRS officials Lois Lerner and Holly Paz fed private tax information of True the Vote to Democratic Congressmen Elijah Cummings.
Working for the Democratic Party: Emails now show that IRS officials Lois Lerner and Holly Paz fed private tax information of True the Vote to Democratic Congressmen Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland).
True the Vote was aggressively harassed by multiple federal agencies, including the IRS. Cummings is on the House committee investigating the IRS and Lois Lerner.
You think he has a conflict of interest? I do. And so does the head of the committee, Darrell Issa (R-California).
A government investigation has found evidence of numerous IRS employees of performing illegal political activity in support of President Obama and fellow Democrats.
Working for the Democratic Party: A government investigation has found evidence of numerous IRS employees of performing illegal political activity, while working, in support of President Obama and fellow Democrats.
These activities were independent of the IRS’s management effort to harass conservatives, and provide further evidence that the tax agency was aggressively using its power during the 2012 election to get Democrats elected.
According to the testimony of IRS agents to a House committee investigating the IRS scandal, the harassment was specifically aimed at conservative groups.
Working for the Democratic Party: According to the testimony of IRS agents to a House committee investigating the IRS scandal, the IRS harassment was specifically aimed at conservative groups.
“Only seven applications in the IRS backlog contained the word ‘progressive,’ all of which were then approved by the IRS, while Tea Party groups received unprecedented review and experienced years-long delays. While some liberal-oriented groups were singled out for scrutiny, evidence shows it was due to non-political reasons,” according to the Oversight staff report, which was obtained by The Daily Caller.
I think the basics of this scandal need to be restated again: The Obama administration, in league with Democrats in Congress, used the IRS to harass their political opponents. They didn’t do it because they had some honest desire to improve IRS operations, they did it to do direct harm to people they disagreed with in order to increase their own power.
If they do not suffer for this corruption of power, we, the free people of the United States, will suffer far more in the coming years.
The House committee investigating the IRS’s political harassment of Obama’s opponents has now unveiled evidence showing that former IRS official Lois Lerner committed perjury in Congressional testimony at least four times.
The House committee investigating the IRS’s political harassment of Obama’s opponents has now unveiled evidence showing that former IRS official Lois Lerner committed perjury in Congressional testimony at least four times.
The evidence also shows that she was aggressively working for the Democratic Party, using her power as an important IRS official to bend the tax laws to attack that party’s political opponents.
Just hours before she was scheduled to testify about IRS harassment of conservatives, the head of a conservative organization was called by an IRS official, telling her that her organization’s tax exempt status had finally been approved, after waiting more than 3 years.
Working for the Democratic Party: Just hours before she was scheduled to testify about IRS harassment of conservatives at a House hearing, the head of a conservative organization was called by an IRS official, telling her that her organization’s tax exempt status had finally been approved, after waiting more than 3 years.
As she noted, “And this is not political?”
Even as the IRS was admitting last year that its harassment of conservatives was a mistake, the agency was working up its new rules to make the harassment official policy, under pressure from Democratic elected officials.
Working for the Democratic Party: Even as the IRS was admitting last year that its harassment of conservatives was a mistake, the agency was working up its new rules to make the harassment official policy, under pressure from Democratic elected officials.
And what about the new official policy?
The tax agency has floated an outline of new rules that would limit those groups’ ability to host candidates, distribute voter guides or conduct voter registration or get-out-the-vote drives. A three-month period for public comments closed on Thursday, and the IRS had posted more than 115,000 comments. They were overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed rules, with both conservative and liberal-leaning groups saying the rules would stifle their ability to participate in important public debates.
One joint comment, filed by a dozen groups ranging from the immigration advocacy America’s Voice and the liberal American Civil Liberties Union to the right-leaning American Conservative Union and tea party-aligned FreedomWorks, asked the Obama administration go back and start over on the rules.
The harassment of conservatives by the IRS was instigated by Democratic elected officials in plain sight for all to see.
Working for the Democratic Party: The harassment of conservatives by the IRS was instigated by Democratic elected officials in Congress and the White House, in plain sight for all to see.
Read it. The author documents numerous examples of Democrats from 2010 to 2013 demanding the IRS do exactly what it ended up doing, harass and shut down the activities of their opponents. And they did it publicly, with pride. And they are still doing it.
Former IRS official Lois Lerner has been recalled to testify again before a House committee in regards to the IRS’s harassment of conservatives.
Former IRS official Lois Lerner has been recalled to testify again before a House committee in regards to the IRS’s harassment of conservatives.
She took the fifth in her first appearance, while also making a statement announcing her innocence. According to numerous experts, this statement voided her ability to take the fifth. There might or might not be fireworks on March 5, when she has been called to return, as she will likely do nothing but cite the fifth amendment in her answers. How the congressmen respond to her non-answers will be interesting.
The most dangerous woman in DC.
Ben Carson and his family and friends have been targets of IRS harassment since he criticized Obama in 2013.
Working for the Democratic Party: Ben Carson and his family and friends have become targets of IRS harassment since he criticized Obama in 2013.
Carson said audits and other harassment began in May or June of 2013 and gradually expanded to include family members, associates, and his charitable endeavors.
“I’ve been quite I would say astonished at the level of hostility that I have encountered,” Carson said in an exclusive interview with host John Bachman on “America’s Forum” on Newsmax TV.
“The IRS has investigated me. They said, ‘I want to look at your real estate holdings.’ There was nothing there. ‘Well, let’s expand to an entire [year], everything.’ There was nothing there. ‘Let’s do another year.’ Finally, after a few months, they went away. But they’ve come after my family, they’ve come after my friends, they’ve come after associates.”
This harassment apparently occurred after the IRS scandal broke in the spring of 2013, which means that instead of ending the harassment that supposedly outraged him, Obama accelerated it by aiming it directly at his electoral opponents.