Judicial Watch Continues to Expose Lois Lerners Political Witch Hunt If there is any single name that has become synonymous with Barack Obamas corruption of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), it is Lois Lerner. Few can forget her stern visage as the then-IRS top official took the Fifth Amendment before California Congressman Darrell Issas House Oversight Committee on May 22 in order to cover up her key role in targeting conservative groups for IRS harassment. A week earlier, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) had released a report revealing that, under Lerners leadership, the IRS Exempt Organizations Division had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as patriot and Tea Party in their titles in applications for tax-exempt status. The TIGTA probe determined that Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status (e.g., lists of past and future donors). The illegal IRS reviews continued for more than 18 months and delayed processing of targeted groups applications preparing for the 2012 presidential election. Judicial Watch immediately filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the IRS for records of all communications relating to the review process for organizations seeking 501(c)(4) nonprofit status since January 1, 2010. And we followed that with a second request specifically seeking all records of communications by Lois Lerner concerning the controversial review and approval process. As I said at the time, the Obama IRS suppressed the entire Tea Party movement just in time to help Obama win reelection. And one of the most pressing questions is What did the president know, and when did he know it? The IRS, as expected, has stonewalled that FOIA request, which forced us on October 9 to file a FOIA lawsuit against the agency in the District Court for the District of Columbia. Well keep you posted on that critical lawsuit. Eventually, of course, long after Lerners disastrous congressional testimony, the IRS finally admitted that while Lerner was in charge, its agents had, indeed, improperly targeted Tea Party groups. At which point, they promptly rewarded her by putting her on paid leave and allowing her to spend several months relaxing at home. Lerner then retired from the IRS on September 23 with full benefits, even after an internal investigation found she was guilty of neglect of duties and was preparing to call for her firing, according to news reports. And that, folks, is how Washington works. But, I am pleased to tell you that the story doesnt end there - because Judicial Watch is now hot on the trail of yet another Lerner-IRS scandal, this one involving her collusion with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to carry out her vendetta against conservative groups. Last week, Judicial Watch obtained 176 pages of email exchanges between Lerner and enforcement attorneys at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) indicating that she had provided detailed, confidential information concerning the tax exempt application status and returns of conservative groups to the FEC in violation of federal law. The emails came from the FEC in response to an August 9, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking access to the following for the timeframe January 1, 2009, to the present (we sent a FOIA request to the IRS seeking the same information, but they are still stonewalling): •Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to the FECs coordination with the IRS regarding the political activities of 501(c) (4) non-profit organizations; •Any and all communications between the FEC and the IRS regarding the political activities of non-profit organizations. The revealing email chain obtained by Judicial Watch begins with a February 3, 2009, email from an FEC attorney (whose name is redacted) asking Lerner if the IRS had issued an exemption letter for American Future Fund (AFF). The writer of the letter notes, When we spoke last July, you told us that the American Future Fund had not received an exemption letter from the IRS. In the same email, the FEC attorney asked Lerner if she could also advise him if the IRS had granted an exemption letter to American Issues Project (AIP) as well as to AIPs predecessor organizations, Citizens for the Republic and Avenger, Inc. In her response sent ten minutes later from her irs.gov email address, Lerner indicated that she would require her staff to cooperate fully, saying, I have sent your email out to some of my staff. Will get back to you as soon as I have heard from them. The bulk of the records Judicial Watch obtained consists of extensive materials from the IRS files sent from Lerner to the FEC containing detailed, confidential information about the organizations. These include annual tax returns (Form 990) and request for exempt recognition forms (Form 1024), Articles of Organization and other corporate documents, and legal correspondence between the non-profit organizations and the IRS. 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, even to another government agency. Initial news reports, when word of some of these IRS-FEC emails first surfaced in August 2013, raised a variety of legal issues. One was the fact that Lerner was supplying confidential information concerning the tax exempt application status of conservative organizations. Another was the fact that the inquiries regarding AFF made by the FEC attorneys in February 2009 to Lerner occurred before the FEC commissioners had voted on whether to investigate AFF (the FEC later voted not to investigate AFF). And a third was the clearly collusion between government agencies with an apparently anti-conservative bias. It should be noted that Lois Lerner has a long track record of using her position to go after targets of interest for the Left. During the Clinton administration, when she was head of the FECs enforcement division previous to joining the IRS, she oversaw an onerous investigation of the Christian Coalition, ultimately costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours in lost work. Though the Coalition was thoroughly exonerated, Lerner had taken her toll. These new documents show that the suppression of the Tea Party and conservatives wasnt necessarily limited to the IRS. Any criminal and congressional investigations need to be expanded beyond the IRS to the FEC. I have the feeling that these documents are just the beginning. My appearance on Fox News Channels Kelly File on this topic, originally slated for last night, has been rescheduled to tonight at 9:40 pm ET. Please tune in!
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:24:09 +0000
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