JW Obtains IRS Docs. Show Lerner & DOJ conspiring.

JW Obtains IRS Documents Showing Lerner in Contact With DOJ about Potential Prosecution of Tax-Exempt Groups​

APRIL 16, 2014

May 9, 2013, email reveals IRS plans to meet with Department of Justice over whether to prosecute groups that “lied” about plans for political activity ​

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released a new batch of internal IRS documents revealing that former IRS official Lois Lerner communicated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities. The documents were obtained as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013.

The newly released IRS documents contain an email exchange between Lerner and Nikole C. Flax, then-Chief of Staff to then-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller discussing plans to work with the DOJ to prosecute nonprofit groups that “lied” (Lerner’s quotation marks) about political activities. The exchange includes the following:

• May 8, 2013: Lerner to Flax
I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ … He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who “lied” on their 1024s –saying they weren’t planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures. DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs.

I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS…

• May 9, 2013: Flax to Lerner
I think we should do it – also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?

Lerner then “handed off” scheduling the issue to Senior Technical Adviser, Attorney Nancy Marks, who was then supposed to set up the meeting with the DOJ. Lerner also decided that it would be DOJ’s decision as to whether representatives from the Federal Election Commission would attend.​

Democratic Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse had held a hearing on April 9during which, “in questioning the witnesses from DOJ and IRS, Whitehouse asked why they have not prosecuted 501(c)(4) groups that have seemingly made false statements about their political activities.” Lerner described the impetus for this hearing in a March 27, 2013, email to top IRS staff:

As I mentioned yesterday — there are several groups of folks from the FEC world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are). One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing the stuff.

So, don’t be fooled about how this is being articulated – it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity

But in an email sent a few minutes earlier, Lerner acknowledged prosecutions would evidently be at odds with the law:

Whether there was a false statement or fraud regarding an [sic] description of an alleged political expenditure that doesn’t say vote for or vote against is not realistic under current law. Everyone is looking for a magic bullet or scapegoat — there isn’t one. The law in this area is just hard.

The documents also include email exchanges showing that before Lerner’s May 10, 2013, speech to the American Bar Association blaming “low-level” employees in Cincinnati for targeting tax-exempt organizations, the IRS Exempt Organizations division was scrambling to defuse the emerging targeting scandal:

• May 1, 2013: After receiving an email from an assistant showing that 501(c)(4) applications had increased from 1591 in 2010 to 3398 in 2012 , Lerner wrote back, “Looks to me like 2010-2012 doubled too. Oh well – thanks.”
• May 2, 2013: Discussing an upcoming conference call with approximately 100 congressional staffers on May 22, Lerner cautions aides, “Need to be careful not to mention sequester/furlough unless asked although can allude to budget and resources restraints.”
• May 2, 2013: In response to an email reminding her about the upcoming conference call with congressional staffers, Lerner responded, “Arrgh – I just saw it. Sharon [White] could skate, but Cindy [Thomas] is the person who could answer that stuff. We need to give them some type of language in the event that type of question comes up” [apparently in reference to earlier email referencing “sensitive issues”].​

The new documents obtained by Judicial Watch also include emails exchanged after Lerner’s May 10 ABA speech:

• May 10, 2013: In an email to an aide responding to a request for information from a Washington Post reporter, Lerner admits that she “can’t confirm that there was anyone on the other side of the political spectrum” who had been targeted by the IRS. She then adds that “The one with the names used were only know [sic] because they have been very loud in the press.”
• May 10, 2013: An email from former Cincinnati program manager Cindy Thomas excoriates Lerner for her comments blaming “low-level” employees in its Cincinnati office for targeting tax-exempt organizations that had “Tea Party” or “Patriots” in their names during the 2012 election. Highlighting the words “low-level workers” in bold-face type each of the seven times she used it in short, pungent email, Thomas asked, “How am I supposed to keep the low-level workers motivated when the public believes they are nothing more than low-level workers and now will have no respect for how they are working cases?” Lerner’s response nearly an hour later was a terse, “I will be back shortly and give you a call.”
• May 15, 2013: In an email from an aide to Lerner, the aide specifically mentions “Tea Party Organizations, the “Tea Party movement,” and “Tea Party Patriots” as organizations targeted by the IRS.​

The Judicial Watch FOIA requests came on the heels of an explosive May 14, 2013, Treasury Inspector General report revealing that the IRS had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status. The IG probe determined that “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status to (e.g., lists of past and future donors).” According to the report, the illegal IRS reviews continued for more than 18 months and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” preparing for the 2012 presidential election.

Lerner, who headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, refused to testify at a May 2013 hearing before Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House Oversight Committee, demanding immunity concerning her role in the targeting scandal. Lerner retired from the IRS with full benefits on September 23 after an internal investigation found she was guilty of “neglect of duties” and was going to call for her ouster, according to news reports. On April 9, 2014, the Ways and Means Committee referred Lois Lerner to the DOJ for criminal prosecution. On April 10, 2014, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress.

“These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The IRS emails show Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal. No wonder we had to sue in federal court to get these documents.”

Source:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-...-doj-potential-prosecution-tax-exempt-groups/

The IRS /DOJ Obama persecution of conservative and religious groups looks to be falling apart. Cummings is also under fire as a co-conspirator in this failed political operation. The question is, whether or not an independent Congressional investigation go forward. Cummings definitely needs to be investigated for either Obstruction of Congressional Committee hearings, or ethics.

 

Yep, we gotta have an Independent Special Prosecutor. NO wonder Holder is trying to block any Congressional investigation.....he's knee-deep in it:

Uncovered emails show IRS, DOJ discussed pursuing 'political' groups. Not since Richard Nixon have we seen such an administration personal ABUSE of the very powerful IRS against their enemies. Sharing their tax info.....and trying to find ways to put them in jail? That's illegal. Put Lerner's ass in jail...and save a spot for Eric Holder and Elijah Cummings and several others.

"Newly uncovered emails show Lois Lerner, the key figure in the IRS scandal, was talking with the Justice Department about going after groups seeking tax-exempt status, just days before she publicly acknowledged the agency was targeting Tea Party and other organizations.

The emails, obtained by Judicial Watch and first reported by TownHall.com, are another indication the targeting may have stretched deeper into the Obama administration. Lerner, the director of the agency’s Exempt Organizations division before retiring last year, initially said the targeting was limited to agents working in the IRS’ Cincinnati field office.

However, a series of inspector general and congressional probes since the scandal broke last year appear to show the targeting of mostly conservative-leaning groups seeking tax-exempt status was orchestrated in Washington.

In a May 2013 email, Lerner responded to a Justice Department inquiry about whether tax-exempt groups could be criminally prosecuted for lying about political activity.

"I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ,” Lerner reportedly wrote to the office of Steven Miller, the agency’s acting director at the time. “He wanted to know who at IRS the DOJ folk s [sic] could talk to about Sen. Whitehouse idea at the hearing that DOJ could piece together false statement cases about applicants who 'lied' on their 1024s -- saying they weren't planning on doing political activity, and then turning around and making large visible political expenditures.

“DOJ is feeling like it needs to respond, but want to talk to the right folks at IRS to see whether there are impediments from our side and what, if any damage this might do to IRS programs. I told him that sounded like we might need several folks from IRS."

Nikole C. Flax, Miller’s chief of staff, responded: "I think we should do it -- also need to include CI [Criminal Investigation Division], which we can help coordinate. Also, we need to reach out to FEC. Does it make sense to consider including them in this or keep it separate?"

House Republicans claimed after the emails were published that they were further proof of coordination among various agencies to target conservatives.

"The release of new documents underscores the political nature of IRS Tea Party targeting and the extent to which supposed apolitical officials took direction from elected Democrats," House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in a statement. "These e-mails are part of an overwhelming body of evidence that political pressure from prominent Democrats led to the targeting of Americans for their political beliefs."

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said that if the targeting hadn't been stopped, "Eric Holder's politicized Justice Department would likely have been leveling trumped up criminal charges against Tea Party groups to intimidate them from exercising their Constitutional rights."

The administration at the highest level denied the targeting, from 2010 through the 2012 presidential election cycle, was illegal or politically motivated.

President Obama told Fox News in February there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in connection with the targeting.

And last week, emails obtained by the GOP-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform show the office of the committee's top-ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, contacted the IRS in January 2013 about True the Vote, one of the conservative groups that was targeted.

A Lerner staffer in response sent the group’s related 990 IRS forms to Cummings and his staff.

In another email, Lerner discussed with agency staffers the purpose of an upcoming, April 9 2013, hearing that also suggests the targeting went beyond the IRS.

“There are several groups of folks from the [Federal Election Commission] world that are pushing tax fraud prosecution for c4s who report they are not conducting political activity when they are (or these folks think they are)," she wrote.

“One is my ex-boss Larry Noble (former General Counsel at the FEC), who is now president of Americans for Campaign Reform. This is their latest push to shut these down. One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn't feel so comfortable doing the stuff. So, don't be fooled about how this is being articulated -- it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity."


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...rner-talked-with-justice-about-irs-targeting/


Yep, we gotta have an Independent Special Prosecutor. NO wonder Holder is trying to block any Congressional investigation.....he's knee-deep in it:

Uncovered emails show IRS, DOJ discussed pursuing 'political' groups. Not since Richard Nixon have we seen such an administration personal ABUSE of the very powerful IRS against their enemies. Sharing their tax info.....and trying to find ways to put them in jail? That's illegal. Put Lerner's ass in jail...and save a spot for Eric Holder and Elijah Cummings and several others.

"Newly uncovered emails show Lois Lerner, the key figure in the IRS scandal, was talking with the Justice Department about going after groups seeking tax-exempt status, just days before she publicly acknowledged the agency was targeting Tea Party and other organizations.

The emails, obtained by Judicial Watch and first reported by TownHall.com, are another indication the targeting may have stretched deeper into the Obama administration. Lerner, the director of the agency’s Exempt Organizations division before retiring last year, initially said the targeting was limited to agents working in the IRS’ Cincinnati field office.

 

This is so unbelievable that more Americans would not be concerned about the tyrannical Obama liberal lemmings using government to persecute their enemies. If this congress doesn't find a way to stop this tyranny, we are all (*)(*)(*)(*)ed. It will be an open door for any future administrations to use the same tyrannical tactics. We are all witnessing what the government will do to an American rancher, and this will lead to "Joe" average citizen in the future. An apathetic society is the beginning of the end

 

We have a very dangerous rogue central gov'ment

 

Yep, we used to have checks and balances, and after witnessing the lying tyrannical Obama, the people of the United States are most definitely screwed.

 

Give the liars time....I'm sure they are plotting their talking points right now.
In Lerner's own words now we have proof she was calling for criminal investigations against foes of the president.

Note her calls for investigation of abuse in applications for 501 (c)4 status focus entirely on Tea Party groups and she is seen coordinating with Sheldon Whitehouse (D Rhode Island).

 

Most corrupt administration ever.

 

Obama Regime running amok.

Obama and company claiming they are above the law.

President Obama Puts Politics Above the Rule of Law​

From aiding Egypt to Obamacare, this administration demonstrates no regard for the Constitution.​

By Andrew Napolitano

Fidelity to the rule of law is the centerpiece of a free society. It means that no one is beneath the protection of the law and no one is absolved of the obligation to comply with it. The government may not make a person or a class of persons exempt from constitutional protections, as it did during slavery, nor may it make government officials exempt from complying with the law, as it does today.

Everyone who works for the government in the United States takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws written pursuant to it. In our system of government, we expect that Congress will write the laws, the courts will interpret them and the president will enforce them. Indeed, the Constitution states that it is the president's affirmative duty to enforce the law. That duty is not an abstract formulation. Rather, it means the president cannot decline to enforce laws with which he disagrees or whose enforcement might cause him or his political allies to lose popularity. It also means the president cannot make up his own version of the law as a substitute for what the Constitution commands or Congress has written.

In the modern era, presidents have rejected the value of the rule of law and instead followed their own political interests. President George W. Bush, for example, while signing into law a federal statute prohibiting the government from reading your mail without a search warrant, boasted that he had no intention of enforcing that law -- and we know that he famously did not enforce it.

But no modern president has picked and chosen which laws to enforce and which to ignore and which to rewrite to the extremes of President Obama. His radical rejection of the rule of law, which presents a clear and present danger to the freedom of us all, has had fatal consequences.

The law requires that if American tax dollars are being given to the government of another country, and that government is toppled by its military -- the common phrase is a coup d'etat -- the flow of cash shall stop immediately, lest we support financially those who have betrayed our values.

In Egypt, the military arrested the president, suspended the Constitution and installed a puppet regime. But Obama, embarrassed at the fall of the popularly elected but religiously fanatical government he supported, refuses to consider that military takeover a coup. Instead he has called it a popular uprising supported by the military, and he has continued the flow of your dollars into the hands of a military that has been murdering scores of peaceful demonstrators daily in the streets of Cairo.

The president's signature domestic legislation -- Obamacare -- is scheduled to become effective in stages. One of its provisions, requiring employers of more than 50 persons to offer health insurance acceptable to the feds to all of their employees, becomes effective on Jan. 1, 2014. In anticipation of its becoming law, insurance carriers and employers have calculated that instead of costs going down, as the president promised, they will certainly go up, resulting in the loss of jobs. So the president, mindful of the midterm congressional elections in November 2014 and fearful that Democrats who supported this law might suffer at the polls at the hands of deceived and thus angry voters, announced on the Fourth of July weekend that he planned not to enforce that provision until Jan. 1, 2015.

When he wanted to use military force in Libya and Pakistan -- two allies -- without congressional approval, out of fear, no doubt, that Congress might turn him down, he dispatched the CIA to do his killing. Why? Because federal law requires that he report all offensive use of the military to Congress and eventually obtain its approval for continued use. Because the CIA largely operates in secrecy, the president needn't report its behavior publicly or even acknowledge that it took place.

In the same vein, he recently moved all records of the Osama bin Laden killing from the military -- which carried it out -- to the CIA. Why? Because the military is largely susceptible to the Freedom of Information Act, which commands transparency, and the CIA is largely not. He probably fears that the truthful version of bin Laden's demise will become known. If so, it would be the fourth version of those events his administration has given.

When he wanted to kill an American and his 16-year-old son in Yemen because the American, though uncharged with any crime and unasked to come home, might be difficult to arrest while advocating war in a foreign country, he wrote his own rules for governing his own killings. He did so in secret and notwithstanding clear language in the Constitution expressly prohibiting the government from taking life, liberty or property without due process of law.

And when he wanted to keep us safe from terrorists but servile to him by spying on all of us, he established an enormous network of domestic spies who have access to all of our phone calls, emails and text messages. And he did this despite unambiguous language in the Constitution requiring a search warrant based on particularized probable cause of crime about the records he wanted to seize or the venues he wanted to search.

What's going on?

What we have is a runaway government, dismissive of the Constitution it has sworn to uphold, contemptuous of the law it is required to enforce and driven by its own values of maximum control and minimum personal freedom. And we have a Congress supine enough to let this happen, as well as a judiciary so tangled in its own arcane procedures that immeasurable human freedom will be destroyed and Obama out of office before any meaningful judicial review can be had.

Is this the rule of law? What shall we do about it?


Source:
http://reason.com/archives/2013/07/11/is-barack-obama-above-the-law
July 11, 2013

He wasn't wrong then and he isn't wrong now. Will Obama still be President (King) after 2016?

 

It's the DOJ's job to target extremist, anti-government groups.

This is hardly the first time the far right has targeted Holder for simply doing his duty.

 

Yep! And a bunch of murdered Navy Seals that were suppose to stop the rogues from getting control. Of course the warrior part over powered the oath and it got them too. Or maybe they were hypmotized with some kind of chip, who knows anymore. Remote controlled?

- - - Updated - - -

John Wayne would roll over in his grave if he knew his pic was hanging around with this kind of talk, lol.

 

So your idea of anti government is any group that offers a different opinion? You are the reason we have gotten to this terrible place in our nation.
Holder is the judicial arm of Obama, not America. The AG is suppose to enforce the law across the board, not go after selective groups that don't align themselves with his or Obama's liberal beliefs. So tell us Pardy, what political liberal groups has Holder went after?

 

Vote Republican in the fall. That will get us through 2 more years, until we can then take over the presidency as well. There will STILL be lots of damage that will take decades to undo. Unfortunately.

 

Richard Nixon's administration looks like Boy Scouts compared to the corruption, tyranny, and lack of ethics running through the Obama Administration and their supporters.

We have the DOJ conspiring with the IRS... how messed up can it get and who can stop them when they withhold information?

 

Can you show us any terrorism conducted by T-Party members that even resembles that of #OWS terrorists or greater?

 

The DOJ asked Learner about groups lying on official forms ( perjury /fraud ) to cheat the system to get tax exempt status, and the nutcakes at Judicial Watch and RW echo chamber think it is some kind of smoking gun.

Apparently, the braintrusts in the chamber haven't figured out it's the DOJ's job to persecute criminals.

 

Just for some fun, let's look at the last time Judicial Watch had themselves a 'splotion of smoking gotcha - back in October.

It looked damning, by George.
JW Obtains Records: IRS

Cons carted around the JW article (and clones) 'round the web as if it was "the end!" for Lerner.

she released confidential info-mation!!!11!!

"According to Judicial Watch, the materials “from the IRS’ files sent from Lerner to the FEC containing detailed, confidential information about the organizations. These include annual tax returns (Forms 990) ..."

and then implied what she be doing: against the law! .....Hilarious.

Spookyworld continues: "Under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, it is a felony for an IRS official to disclose either “return information” or “taxpayer return information...”

Hot dammity! That sounds awful lawbreaky, donut?

Notice those words in quotes. Except what was shown was not “taxpayer return information."

990 Forms are required to be made publicly available.


I mean, look how confidential *this* ...erm, 990 return information is:



http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2005/JW 2004-990 Public Disclosure.pdf

26 pages 'O 501 See Fun!

Egg-faced aplenty, they be.

Not going to hold my breath knowing how cherry-picky (and stoopid!) the right has been when it comes to We got the mid-level IRS employee now! game.

 

Here's the latest available 990 Form from the 501c3 -- Judicial Watch:

https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2013_06_EO/52-1885088_990_201212.pdf

From: http://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521885088

They're rolling in dough as they rake the rubes.

 

I'm not aware of any liberal groups that are anti-government and extreme. I am aware of conservative groups that are anti-government and extreme, with calls for armed, bloody rebellion, hate, and violence. A founder of the White Patriot Party was charged with multiple murders just a few days ago.

It turns out that targeting "patriot" groups has been justified.

 

Well, well, well . . . what do you know? Psssst . . . hey all you inveterate apologists for the Obama administration howling about how this was just partisanship on the part of Right of Center people? It looks like there was a substantial amount of 'there' there after all. Too bad that YOUR chronically in-the-tank-for-Obama Mainstream Media dismissed it out of hand without even trying to investigate . . . oh wait . . . they couldn't have done that even if they had wanted to risk crossing Obama. You see the three traditional broadcast networks only had one legitimate investigative reporter left between them . . . and then recently CBS got 'tired' of her insistence that there really was a great deal of examined and repressed 'there' regarding Benghazi that the government was keeping concealed, and so maneuvered her into asking to be released from her own contract. Of course NOW she is a free agent and is STILL interested in discovering just how much repressed and concealed 'there' is really there regarding Benghazi.

Gosh! It's rather like pinhole leaks in a the dike of a full reservoir. No matter how many of YOUR MSM outlets and YOUR administration mouthpieces keep plastering over cracks and holes in gradually cracking reality for YOUR president, some tale-tell sprays of 'there' keep blasting past your faces. Sweet!

The IRS scandal, Benghazi-gate, and the list goes on and on and on with this 'transparent' executive branch of your "Hope and Change" president. Who'd ah thunk it? Wellllllllll . . . anyone that bothered to actually look into Barack Obama's background back in 2008.

 

This ahere is what we call the Low Information Media, delivered to Low Information Voters and Low Information Posters defend the unbearable lightness of Being

...Low Information.

 

Total BS, name one TP that has called for any violence, I know you can't, but give me your best lie. There are extreme groups like kkk and black panthers, or extreme militia nuts, and islamic loons, so quit your lies that it is a TEA Party anything. You can't name one single liberal group being investigated by the Obama gestapo IRS/Justice department, because they are his lemming cheerleaders, just like you. It's (*)(*)(*)(*)ing pathetic you would let your partisanship allow a government to abuse that power. The IRS told Nixon they would not investigate anyone, and the republicans are the one's that told him to step down, there was no army of cheerleaders covering his lying ass like they do for Obama. This nation deserves the government it gets when they allow this sort of tyranny

 

And Ubama is the 'screwdriver'.